Arms Dealer
by Tristan Palmgren
Summary: A merchant introduces the concept of bullet weapons to Mobius at the same time that it comes out in the open that Lupe and a long-thought roboticized Freedom Fighter had a relationship in the past. The formatting here looks awful; better read at satamson


Arms Dealer  
  
A Sonic the Hedgehog Story  
by Tristan Palmgren  
  
  
Sonic the Hedgehog, Tails, and Robotnik are properties of SEGA inc. Sally,   
Bunnie, Uncle Chuck, Nicole, Antoine, Rotor, Griff, Lupe, Cat, and Snively are the   
properties of DiC Productions. Julayla and Geoffrey St. John are the properties of Archie   
Comics. The characters Bookshire Draftwood and Sandra Nightweaver were created by   
and are the properties of David Pistone. Neophyte and Anacharis were created by and are   
the properties of Allison Fleury, and are used with permission. The character Epos Nix is   
the property of Tristan Palmgren.  
You are free to do anything you want with this story, especially distribute it, so   
long as you A) Don't change my work in any way, B) Don't try to pass it off as your   
own, or C) Don't make money off of my work.  
  
Author's notes: Over the length of this story I give information about the   
numerous weapons that is most likely highly inaccurate and should under no   
circumstances be taken as representative their counterparts in our world, especially on   
details such as clip size and rate of fire. The author's explanation for these inaccuracies is   
the numerous modifications Epos Nix has made to the weapons, including fooling around   
with the safety switches and lengthening the weapon's barrel for higher accuracy.  
  
Feel free to send comments, questions, or flames to the author at   
charpalm@mediaone.net  
  
**Episode 9: Sonic Boom**  
  
Outside one of the many pollution-blackened buildings of Robotropolis, the sound   
barrier was on the verge of being broken. The source only pushed the laws of physics to   
the very edge of a sonic boom; he never actually created the sound, as that would set off a   
multitude of nearby alarms.  
"I'm comin', Cat," he said breathlessly to himself. A trail of dust marked his   
passage up one of the building's walls and into an open air duct.  
He raced down a corridor, moving past row after row of empty prison cells.   
Eleven years ago, this building had held a number of Mobotropolis's citizens, storing them   
like so much cargo as they awaited the roboticizer. Now, the prison had been abandoned   
since the coup, and was only used occasionally to lock up captured Freedom Fighters or   
other refugees.  
Sonic skidded to a halt outside a cell. Shadows obscured the cell's corners, but   
otherwise it appeared empty. He felt his heart sink.  
"Cat!" he whispered frantically. "Cat!" There was no answer from the shadows.  
Sonic hung his head, knowing what had happened. He had been too late.  
"Cat!" he tried one last time, futilely. There was a hum from the opposite end of   
the corridor, a bright flash, and dust kicked up near his feet. SWATbot boots were   
audible clanking against the floor. Robotnik had been prepared for Sonic's return.  
Sonic tossed one last, despairing glance toward the empty cell. Then he looked   
towards the approaching 'bots, face lit brightly with anger.  
He disappeared in a streak of blue.  
  
"This one's for Cat!" the face on the video monitor exclaimed. It was exultant and   
mournful at the same time, but most of all, it was enraged. Behind the hedgehog,   
Robotropolis was alight in the fiery glow of the four StealthBots that had just exploded.  
The image flickered, and then dissolved into static.  
Ivo Robotnik's metal fist slammed the side of his chair. The room reverberated   
violently with the impact. "Snively!"  
Snively tried unsuccessfully to stifle a little squeak of fear.  
"What went wrong, Snively?" the obese man demanded, quaking with rage.  
"I don't know, sir!" Snively burst out. He fussed with his computer, although only   
to make a display of trying to do something. "We lost control of the StealthBots, and then   
they exploded! The rebels must have sabotaged them, sir!"  
"Scramble another squadron of hover units! Pursue the hedgehog!"  
Snively obeyed, although he knew it was too late. By the time he managed to get   
another Spy Orb over to where the Freedom Fighters had been, they were already gone.  
Robotnik's fist slammed into the closest available surface: Snively's computer.   
Snively jumped; he hadn't realized that his uncle had been standing so close. Robotnik's   
eyes were blazing with anger. Snively had seen that look before. It meant that Robotnik   
was looking for someone to blame. His eyes stopped at Snively, and narrowed.  
"Sir!" Snively squealed instinctively, before anything else could happen. "May I   
point out that the day hasn't been a complete loss! We did capture that Freedom Fighter   
in the air ducts!"  
Some of the anger disappeared.  
Robotnik turned away, and strolled purposefully towards his chair. Snively heaved   
a sigh of relief: his body had been beaten bloody too many times by Robotnik's roboticized   
left hand.  
"Where is the prisoner now?" he asked, forcibly calm.  
"Being held in the cells below, sir." After the hedgehog had tried breaking out his   
friend the first time, Robotnik had ordered him moved to another cell, in this building.  
"Prepare the roboticizer!"  
  
A glass tube lowered itself around Cat, trapping him completely in the roboticizer.   
The machinery above began to shift, and hum with the sinister energies that had enslaved   
so many before.  
"This is it, old boy. The offer still stands. Tell me the location of Knothole, and   
you have my word that you won't be roboticized."  
Cat rolled his eyes.  
"I'm feeling very gracious today, you little mongrel," Robotnik growled. "I'll give   
you one last chance. If you won't discuss Knothole… then you can tell me all you know   
about Lupe and the Wolf Pack."  
Cat's look of surprise told Robotnik everything he needed to know.  
"The name means something to you, yes?"  
Cat's mouth was agape in shock. He had put on a great show of strength, until   
now. Robotnik had hit him somewhere vulnerable.. "You mean, she… she's alive?"  
Robotnik didn't answer. He thrummed his fingers across the table, waiting for   
something else.  
Cat's eyes suddenly hardened. Whatever soft spot he had been hit in was gone.   
He seemed… strengthened, somehow. "If she's still alive, then she's still fighting you,   
Robotnik. I hope her dagger is the last thing you ever see."  
Robotnik sighed. "Clearly, this animal doesn't wish to live. Activate the   
roboticizer, Snively."  
"Yes, sir," Snively said dolefully. He pulled the lever.  
  
**Three days after the events in "Cry of the Wolf"**  
Day One  
  
"I dunno, Sal. I just don't trust him."  
Usually, this went the other way around. Usually, it was the Princess who insisted   
on caution whenever the Freedom Fighters met someone who claimed to be an ally. This   
was far from the usual.  
"Hold on, Sonic Hedgehog" Sally protested. "I never said I trusted him. I just   
said that we might be able to deal with him."  
"Just one look at the guy and you can tell that he's only out for himself."  
Sally only shrugged. "Has there ever been any other kind of trader? Or at least, a   
successful trader?"  
Sonic made a face. He hated it when Sally got like this. "Be careful with your   
wording, Sal. 'Trader' and 'Traitor' sound a lot alike."  
Sally wasn't the only thing getting on Sonic's nerves. He, the Princess, and Bunnie   
Rabbot were walking down an small dirt trail that lead through the Great Forest.   
*Walking*. Although he typically enjoyed the role of the braggart, for once he found   
himself wishing that Sally and Bunnie had been gifted with his speed, as well. At least   
then, he wouldn't have to keep waiting for them.  
"Ah don't like him, either," Bunnie said, "But if he says he can help the Freedom   
Fighters, Ah'm willin' to give him a chance."  
"Look it this way, Sonic," Sally continued. "At least we're meeting him away from   
Knothole. If he does betray us, he won't be able to give Robotnik Knothole's location."  
"Yeah," Sonic shot back sarcastically. "All he can do is lead us into a trap and get   
us killed or roboticized. What was I worrying about?" Still, he kept moving, however   
reluctantly.  
"Sonic…" Sally said, voice tauntingly alluring. "Are you saying that you won't be   
able to save us if that does happen?"  
Sonic found himself backed into a trap. He shook his head frantically. "Of course,   
not, Sal. I'm the Hedgehog. I can do anything!"  
"So what *are* you worrying about?" Sonic didn't answer her. More than   
walking, he hated when Sally outsmarted him. Sally and Bunnie exchanged a quick smile.  
"Boys!" Sally shook her head, and kept walking.  
  
The clearing their enigmatic contact had agreed to meet them at was a smallish   
one. All three freedom fighters knew where it was, and could recognize it instantly: it was   
near a shortcut that lead directly back to Knothole. Sonic had insisted on this place,   
because it meant that if anything went wrong, he could juice back to the hidden village.  
He fought an instinctive urge to do exactly that as they neared the clearing. An   
earsplitting rat-a-tat-tat filled the air momentarily, echoing off of nearby hillsides, and   
sounding for all the world like miniature bursts of thunder. But this spring morning had   
nothing but sunshine and clear skies.  
The blasts were spaced evenly apart, within maybe a quarter a second of each   
other. Sonic counted twenty separate spurts within five seconds.  
"What the hoo-hah was that?" Bunnie said apprehensively as the last echoes faded   
away. The fur on her non-roboticized limbs stood on end.  
"I don't know," Sally responded. "I've never heard anything like it."  
"Neither have I," Sonic said, still resisting the urge to grab the other two and dash   
as far away as possible. "Maybe Robuttnik has something to do with it!"  
Sally unclipped a palm-sized computer from the top of her boot. "Nicole, analysis   
please."  
"CHEMICAL EXPLOSION, SALLY."  
"Can she tell us anything else, Sally-girl?" Bunnie asked. Nicole answered her   
directly, and in the negative.  
Sally frowned, and slid the computer back into her boot. She continued walking   
forward.  
"Uh, Sal," Sonic said from behind her. "Not that I'm *nervous*, or anything, but   
don't you think that just a little caution would be a cool thing right now?"  
Bunnie unsuccessfully stifled a chuckle. "Caution? The Sugar-hog? Now those   
are two things that've never gone together before."  
Sally slowed her pace, then stopped. "You're right," she relented finally. "But we   
can't pass up this opportunity, either. Whatever it is, though, may not indicate anything   
dangerous. Remember Uncle Chuck's message said something about some strange noises   
just before he found Nix in the first place?"  
"Yeah," Sonic said reluctantly, knowing where Sally was going with this train of   
thought. As soon his Uncle had reported finding the strange human, he and Sally had   
gone to Robotropolis to meet him as soon as possible. Then, Nix had been pretty much   
empty-handed. They had promised to meet Nix again, here, after he got his hands on what   
he called 'cargo'. He cut her off before she could continue. "I usually hate to say this, but   
let's approach the clearing *slowly*. And from cover."  
"Agreed," Sally and Bunnie both said, almost in unison. Bunnie added, "Ah can't   
guarantee that I can keep mah metal legs from making too much noise in the underbrush,   
though."  
The three Freedom Fighters ducked off the small path they were walking on, and   
into the tall vegetation of the Great Forest. It didn't take them long to reach the agreed-  
upon clearing.  
Despite the foreboding thunderclap noises, there was no sign of any trouble in the   
clearing. A single tent had been set up nearby, painted in the mottled gray-green of jungle   
camouflage. Insect netting, likely placed across the tent's two entrances at night, were   
unfolded and rested in a pile to one side of the camp. Their contact was busy rummaging   
through something inside the tent.  
Epos Nix was no ordinary human. Judging from his clothing, he wasn't from any   
Overlander or Nomad clan that Sally could name. His face seemed far too… irregular,   
somehow. His manner wasn't odd by itself, but it still wasn't something that she had seen   
from any human in her lifetime. Nix moved slowly, and with a slight limp, and he seemed   
to be losing whatever fur – hair, Sally reminded herself – that had crowned his head in the   
first place. Perhaps he was, like Doctor Robotnik's nephew Snively, a mutation.   
Somehow, Sally doubted that.  
It wasn't long before Nix noticed something, and stood up deliberately. Bunnie's   
legs, despite their strength, were sometimes clumsy to move, and had given them away   
after all.  
"Ah'm sorry, fellas," she said, wishing for the thousandth time that she had never   
been partially roboticized.  
"No need, no need," Epos Nix said quickly. His voice had a peculiar inflection   
that, like so many other things about Nix, Sally had never heard before. She didn't pay   
attention to that, though, having long grown used to various regional dialects. Between   
Bunnie's sweet-mouthed twang and Antoine's scattered French, Knothole itself seemed   
home to at least 30 different accents. "You can come out into the open, Princess. I have   
fulfilled my end of the bargain."  
The trio stepped out into the clearing. Sally tried to catch a glimpse of what Nix   
had been sorting through in his tent, but saw nothing but shadow.  
"You never told us what all the bargain was, in the first place," she said cautiously.   
During their one and only meeting in Robotropolis, Epos Nix had only said that he had   
something of immense value to offer to the Freedom Fighters, and hadn't elaborated.  
"I can show you now, then." Nix turned back to the tent, and again began sorting   
through the items resting inside. For a moment, Sally thought she saw several large   
crates. "Straight down to business," he said as he continued moving boxes aside. Finally,   
he selected one and dragged it out into the sunlight.  
The box wasn't a wooden supply crate, as she had first suspected. Instead, it was a   
flimsy cardboard, dull brown except for a single logo on the side: "ENJOY COCA-  
COLA".  
"Coca-cola?" Sonic asked skeptically. "Sounds like a narcotic."  
Nix laughed briefly. "It's not a drug, hedgehog. Relax. I just use old boxes to   
carry my junk."  
As if to prove his point, he grabbed something from within the box that was   
definitely not a computer. It was shaped… almost like one of Robotnik's laser rifles. But   
the design was all wrong. First of all, the barrel was too wide, and too short and stubby.   
As Sally looked at it, she saw that the barrel's nozzle didn't have a focusing crystal near the   
end. A crystal was essential to direct the laser's energies into a true blast; otherwise, it   
would just produce a random stream of intense light.  
The thing was obviously a weapon, however. Sights were mounted on the top of   
the barrel. A long handle protruding downwards from the end of the stubby weapon   
shielded a trigger. As Sally watched, Nix pulled a canister from his pocket and snapped it   
on to the underside of the gun, giving it the appearance of having two handles.  
Sally waited for Sonic's typical boastful commentary, such as "The only weapon I'll   
ever need is my sneakers and a Spin!". She was grateful when it didn't happen, but could   
tell that he was thinking it.  
"Like any good salesman, I'll begin with a product demonstration," Nix said   
confidently. "Pick a tree."  
When Sally didn't immediately respond, Sonic jabbed a finger towards a towering   
maple on the other side of the clearing. "That one."  
"No problem." With that, Nix thumbed a switch and leveled the stubby weapon   
towards the indicated tree. The gun was almost small enough to be a pistol instead of a   
rifle, and that was how the human held it: with only one hand on the gun, holding onto the   
trigger. Nix squeezed it.  
The rifle spat fire, and the forest around them immediately echoed with the same   
thunderous rat-a-tat-tat that had haunted them minutes ago. Bunnie flinched at the noise.   
A bright yellow flame blossomed into being and flickered continually a few inches from   
the lip of the barrel.  
If anything, the claps of thunder seemed spaced closer together this time. Sally   
couldn't count the number of booms in one second.  
For a moment, Sally thought that was the extent of the rifle's power, that it was   
just a short-range flame-thrower. Then she looked over at the tree. In correspondence   
with each bellow from the gun, the tree's bark cracked and splintered. Chips of wood flew   
in every direction. Dents quickly appeared. As each round struck the tree, the holes they   
bore grew deeper and deeper.  
Finally, the gun whirred to a stop with a series of empty clicks. Nix released his   
hold on the trigger. Dust settled around the target, and to her great surprise, Sally found   
that over half the thick trunk had been chewed away. A laser rifle would have only   
accomplished a quarter in such a short period of time.  
As there was no way that a laser rifle could fire as fast as this weapon.  
Sally found that, like Bunnie earlier, the fur on her back and arms was standing on   
end. She shivered, trying not to show her uneasiness.  
"That was incredible," she said at last.  
"How'd you do that?" Sonic asked. "I didn't see anything move from the barrel of   
your gun to that tree. No laser or anything."  
"That's because this doesn't use lasers. Or a fusion burst."  
"Then how does it work?" he asked anxiously.  
Nix ripped off the canister he had plugged into the bottom of the gun and tossed it   
absently into the grass. "Sonic, have you ever had a slingshot as a kid?"  
Sonic laughed boisterously. "The best shot in all of Knothole!" he proclaimed.  
Nix nodded, disinterested. He was searching through his pockets for something.   
Finally, he pulled out a canister identical to one he had just removed from the underside of   
his rifle. He extracted a small pellet from it.  
"This gun operates on the same basic principle. It fires a projectile, a bullet, out of   
the barrel towards a target." Sally examined the pellet more closely. It was a small, box-  
like chunk of lead that tapered down to a smooth point at one end. The lead was coated   
in copper, as well. "This is just a… a more advanced model."  
"No way," Sonic objected. "I would've seen it." With any weapon that Sally had   
ever seen, there was usually some kind of projectile or energy burst visible between the   
gun and its target. There had appeared to be just… air between this gun and the tree. As   
if Nix had just planted little explosive charges in the trunk itself, and the devastation had   
nothing to do with the hand-held weapon.  
Bunnie nodded in affirmation. "There was nothin' but clear air between your gun   
and the tree."  
"Wrong," Nix corrected in a smug tone that Sally had heard her mentor Julayla use   
during lessons. "This weapon fires the bullets too fast for the eye to see. But they're   
there, all the same." He grinned. "They can move faster than you can, hedgehog."  
"Faster than moi?" Sonic said doubtfully, but he didn't press the issue. All three   
Freedom Fighters wanted to see more of the weapon.  
"Where does this… unusual device come from?" Sally asked anxiously.  
"I'm afraid I can't answer that one, Princess." Nix's voice was quite firm. "But I   
can tell you how it works."  
He flipped the weapon onto its side, holding it between his arms at an angle. With   
a finger, he indicated a switch on the side of the weapon that Sally had not noticed before.   
"Ever since I managed to obtain these weapons, I've been slowly and methodically   
upgrading them to perform better in this environment. This switch is one of the things   
that I've modified: it's the safety catch. I changed it from just a simple 'on/off' switch.   
The safety actually switches between three different firing modes." Bunnie looked at   
Sally, confused, and Epos Nix could tell that he wasn't getting his point across. He sighed   
disparagingly, and then tried again. "Let me show you: if it's is toggled into this position,"   
he flipped the switch to its uppermost position, "then the gun won't fire."  
Sally nodded appreciatively. Ever since seeing the weapon, she had begun   
worrying about the danger of a kid like Tails accidentally getting a hold of it. The safety   
catch helped allay her fears.  
Nix flipped the switch again, moving it to the bottom position. "This is full   
automatic mode. This is what I had switched on when I showed you the weapon a few   
moments ago; it fires at around four bullets per second." He sighed. "Ordinarily, it would   
be a lot faster, but I manually reduced it to increase accuracy. Although the weapon is   
extremely effective in full automatic mode, the accuracy suffers. It tends to pull up, and to   
the right."  
He flipped the safety catch to the middle position. "This is a firing mode I installed   
myself. It only allows the weapon to fire two bullets per second, but the accuracy of the   
weapon is increased dramatically. This is actually an idea I stole from the AK-47…most   
effective for long ranges; especially for bringing down Robotnik's hover patrols."  
"Hold on a minute," Sonic said, crossing his arms. "A *laser rifle* won't even   
bring down a hover patrol, and it can fire at the same speed as your middle setting. And a   
laser rifle's shot is individually a lot more powerful than one of your bullets." This much   
was true. Each bullet that Sally had seen impact the tree had only been a puff of dust   
compared to the explosion that laser rifles were capable of inflicting. The bullets' strength   
there had been their numbers. Eliminate that, and it didn't look like this 'advanced   
slingshot' could offer much in the way of competition to a laser rifle.  
"You're jumping too far ahead in this demonstration," Nix said. He slung his   
unique weapon over his shoulder, on a strap, and made his way over to his tent in the   
clearing. Again, he began rummaging through shadowy boxes. When he emerged again,   
he held two pieces of armor in his hand.  
One was the cold gray color of SWATbot armor. The other was the pale green of   
Robotnik's egg-shaped hover units. They were both no more than half an inch thick, and   
six inches wide.  
Without speaking, Nix propped up both pieces of metal up against a log on the   
other side of the clearing, and made his way back over to the three Freedom Fighters. He   
pulled the weapon off his back, and thumbed the safety catch to its middle setting. Nix   
took careful aim at the log, both hands holding on to the gun…  
BLAM! Plink! The two noises happened simultaneously, and the SWATbot   
armor tipped over.  
BLAM! Plink! The hover unit's armor flopped into the grass.  
Nix walked over to the log, and picked up the SWATbot armor, holding it so that   
the Freedom Fighters could see it clearly. A ragged hole several times larger than a bullet   
had been torn in it. When he held up the hover unit armor, a hole the size of a fist had   
been punched clean through it.  
Bunnie let out a low whistle. Had that been a laser rifle that had fired on that   
armor, it wouldn't have done anywhere near so much damage.  
"No way!" Sonic shouted. "That's gotta be fake!"  
"Inspect the metal yourself," Nix offered. "It's armor taken," he grinned, "directly   
from their owners. Genuine, in other words."  
Sally walked over to broken pieces of armor. Nix gladly presented the metal taken   
from the hull of the hover unit. The metal itself, although thick, was surprisingly   
lightweight.  
Sally tried to recall everything Julayla had taught her about metallurgy. None of   
what she knew could explain this right immediately.  
"It's how the armor itself is built. Your world -" Nix stopped himself, as if he had   
said too much. "Your culture, unlike my own, never put too much of its scientific   
research capacity into developing new kinds of weaponry. Instead of creating newer and   
better kinds of bullet weapons, you stuck to creating laser weapons, and then only when   
you needed to."  
Sally nodded. "Killing never concerned us much. At least, not until the Great   
War."  
Nix looked at her gravely. "You had better things to do with your time, instead of   
spending it on warfare. I envy you that."  
Again, Sally frowned, looking inquisitively at Nix's chiseled face. As far as she had   
heard, there no human Overlord clans wracked with as much strife as Nix had implied his   
was. Where did this human come from?  
But Epos Nix had already turned back to his weapon, and the destroyed armor.   
"That also means, however, that your culture designed its armor in order to ward off laser   
weapons. Not bullets." He picked up the hover unit armor, and tossed it in the air several   
times. "This armor was designed to dissipate the energy from laser weapons. It takes the   
excess heat and destructive force of a laser bolt and spreads it across as wide an area as   
possible, to minimize the damage. To do this, the metal has to be highly conductive."  
Sonic sighed. Sally suspected that Nix had lost him minutes ago.  
"Unfortunately for Robotnik, the metal he chose to build his hover units from,   
although highly conductive, has a poor tensile strength. It's almost the bare minimum to   
keep the hover unit afloat. That's how physical things like bullets are able to punch   
through it so easily."  
"In English, please!" Sonic muttered, a complaint usually reserved for Nicole.  
Nix rolled his eyes. "That means that, because Robotnik designed his hover units   
and SWATbots to ward off laser weapons only, they're especially vulnerable to other   
things, like bullet weapons."  
Sally had understood every word that Nix had said. Her eyes were bright with   
excitement. Sonic was still looking at him through a haze of confusion and frustration.  
Nix wasn't finished talking. He turned to Bunnie. "Have you ever used your   
roboticized limbs to hack through Robotnik's SWATbots?" he asked bluntly.  
Bunnie looked at Sonic and Sally. After all these years, talking about her half-  
mechanical body still made her uncomfortable. "'Course I have. They're not good for   
much else." In her days as a Freedom Fighter, Bunnie had literally torn apart dozens, if   
not hundreds, of SWATbots.  
Nix's face softened, as if he realized that he had touched on a sensitive topic. "And   
how easy is it to kill them?"  
"Pretty easy, sugar. My arm goes through 'em like a knife through butter."  
Nix continued, although he had already more than proven his point to Sally. "You,   
Sonic. I've heard about you. How easy is it to destroy hover units by luring them into a   
wall?"  
Sonic swelled with pride. "Very easy. You just have to get the slow things to nick   
against a corner or something, and they start breaking apart."  
"That's because they were built with a low tensile strength," Nix said. Sonic   
suddenly appeared to understand what Nix had said earlier.  
"Oh," Sonic said. Then his face lit up. "Oh! I gotcha. Cool."  
"Now, I warned you earlier that sometimes this weapon's accuracy suffers a little.   
It's usually good only at short ranges, but I managed to modify it." Nix said, changing   
subjects. He slid his hand along the weapon's barrel. As Sally examined it closer, she saw   
that the barrel was made of a different material than the rest of the gun, and was longer   
than it should have been. "I lengthened the barrel on all my stock myself. It should be   
accurate now to over 200 meters on the safety catch's middle setting."  
"You have a deal," Sally said immediately. "These could be an immense boon in   
the war against Robotnik." Even Sonic couldn't argue with that. "How much do you   
want for them?"  
"Before we discuss a price, let's discuss what you'll get. For each unit you'll buy, I   
can give you one of these weapons, modified to behave like this one, and five of my own   
special clips. Each clip can hold about fifty bullets. That's two hundred and fifty bullets   
per weapon."  
"Okay."  
"Right now, I only have a dozen units available. Sorry, but I only had time to   
modify so many."  
"Check. We'll take all twelve." Sally's face froze; she realized how immeasurably   
valuable these weapons would be to the Freedom Fighters. A merchant like Nix would   
likely realize that, and try to take full advantage of it. "Keep in mind, we're a pretty   
loosely organized group, so we don't have much to barter with you…"  
"I have no wish to barter. I want hard Mobian currency. Gold coins."  
Of all the things that Nix could have demanded, that was the thing that Sally had   
been least expecting.   
Robotnik's coup ten years ago had not only disrupted Mobius's economy, but in   
fact completely destroyed it. Mobian coins had become worthless. Whatever trade   
existed between the scattered groups and towns that had survived the coming of Ivo   
Robotnik was now mostly conducted through simple barter. However many gold coins   
Epos Nix got his hands on, he wouldn't be able to buy much. From anybody.  
Even somebody like Sandra Nightweaver, who was as tight-fisted when it came to   
trade as the hardest merchant, never accepted any Mobian currency, no matter how high   
the gold content.  
"But, Mobian coins are -" Sally started.  
"Worthless?" Nix cut her off, smiling thinly. "Maybe to everybody else on this   
planet. But not to me."  
Sally shook her head. She knew she had to get these weapons to the Freedom   
Fighters, and decided she would do so, no matter how strange Nix's demands were.   
Knothole even had its own little supply of Mobian coins, even if Bookshire kept most of   
them in his storage shed and let them gather dust. "Five hundred gold coins per unit?" she   
asked, hopefully.  
Nix scoffed. "Hardly. Try two thousand."  
"Out of the question," Sally protested. She tried reading Nix's face, but could find   
nothing in his expression. The man was a trader, all right, and a good one. "Eight   
hundred."  
"One thousand five hundred."  
"Ten thousand for all twelve," Sally said.  
"Try fifteen thousand for all twelve."  
"Twelve thousand."  
"Thirteen thousand gold coins for all dozen weapons. And I'll personally train   
everyone who receives a weapon," Nix said, an odd note of finality in his voice.  
"Sold."  
Epos Nix smiled. "A very wise choice, Princess. When do you want the weapons   
delivered?"  
All three Freedom Fighters looked at one another. Sally decided that she still   
didn't trust Nix anywhere near Knothole. "We'll take them now, if that's all right."  
"Of course. I think I can trust the infamous Knothole Freedom Fighters to deliver   
the currency as promised." Nix went into his tent, and retrieved a crate. He set it down in   
front of Sally, then went back in to grab another one. Sally checked the crate he had   
pulled out: it was full of the bullet weapons and ammunition clips.  
"Just be sure to pay up by tomorrow evening," Nix said, carrying out another box.   
"I'll be staying right here, in this clearing, until then."  
"No problem," Sally said. Her mind was already racing. She didn't know how   
much currency Bookshire had, but he certainly didn't have thirteen thousand coins. But   
the Freedom Fighters could hardly afford to pass up this opportunity. They would find the   
money, somehow.  
Sonic picked up one of the crates, and revved up his legs. "I can't wait to show   
these to everybody! I'll be back to help you guys out. Juice and jam time!"  
A sonic boom echoed throughout the forest.  
Epos Nix brought out one final crate, and set it in front of Bunnie. Sally looked   
curiously at him again. "One last thing?" she asked tentatively.  
"Shoot," Nix said.  
Sally was about to ask him where he was from, then thought better of it. If he   
didn't want her to know, then he wasn't going to tell her. "What would you like us to call   
these weapons? The Nix rifle?"  
Epos Nix laughed unexpectedly, as if he had heard the punch-line to a joke that   
only he would ever get. "Of course, not, Princess. Call it by its real name." He spoke a   
word that Sally had never heard before.  
Sally stumbled over the word, feeling as clumsy as Antoine in pronunciation. "An   
Ooo-zee?"  
Nix laughed again, and spelled it out for her.  
"Uzi."  
  
"Thirteen thousand!" Bookshire scoffed. "Princess, I doubt that we have more   
than two thousand at all in Knothole."  
The leaders of the Freedom Fighter group were gathered around a dingy old   
conference table that Sally had dragged into her hut. As a meeting hall, it was the only   
thing the poorly supplied Freedom Fighters could get their hands on. It served its   
purpose, though. Just minutes ago, Sally had told them all about Epos Nix and his bullet   
weapons.  
"Yes, and zat is if we are being lucky," Antoine said.  
Antoine's accent seemed to darken Geoffrey St. John's mood. He had put up quite   
a protest when the other Freedom Fighters began allowing Antoine to sit in on these   
meetings. For once and only once, he and Sonic agreed on something. "Look, Princess,   
this isn't exactly a lawful society anymore. No one's going to arrest us if we reneg on a   
deal. Why can't we just give this Nix bastard two thousand and be done with it?"  
Even Sonic understood the logical fallacies of Geoffrey's position. He scoffed   
louder than Bookshire had. "No, Geoff! Do you think this Nix is gonna sell us any more   
weapons if we back out like that?"  
"What difference does it make if we can't afford the things?" Geoffrey shot back.  
Sally interrupted. "We won't back out of this deal, not yet. We'll pay Nix,   
somehow. We do owe him."  
The Aussie skunk scowled. Sally ignored him, and continued.  
"Besides, the coins aren't really of value to anybody now. If we can just find   
enough of them to give to Nix, we won't ever miss them once they're gone." That much   
could never have been true of the barter that the Freedom Fighters were used to.  
"That still leaves us with a mondo problem, Sal," Sonic said. "Where do we get   
the coins?"  
"We'll have to dig around Knothole for every last piece of old Mobian currency we   
can find. Sonic, can you scout out around the outlying suburbs of Robotropolis? There   
may be a few abandoned banks still intact there."  
"I doubt it, but yeah, sure. Why not?"  
Sally folded her arms, stilling planning out their next steps. "We may have to ask   
some of the other Freedom Fighter groups for help, too. Maybe even Griff from Under   
Mobius, but I don't think he'll be willing to give away much." She frowned. It had only   
been three days ago that they had found another Freedom Fighter group: the Wolf Pack.   
The Eastern and Southern groups were just starting to communicate with them, via Uncle   
Chuck's carrier birds. There was no way they could get anything from the Eastern and   
Southern groups before tomorrow evening's deadline. But the Wolf Pack…  
Sally turned to Rotor. "Rotor, Lupe is scheduled to travel to Knothole tomorrow,   
correct?"  
The walrus nodded. "Right." Lupe had agreed to travel on her first visit to   
Knothole, tomorrow. Sally had planned to initiate a joint raid between the two groups,   
but now it seemed that that would have to wait.  
"Send a messenger bird down to the Wolf Pack. Tell Lupe to bring with her   
however much Mobian currency she can manage."  
"And what'll we do if that still doesn't work, hon?" Bunnie asked. It was the   
question on everybody's mind.  
"We might even have to raid Robotropolis's old warehouses."  
Geoffrey sighed melodramatically. "Risk our lives to amuse this Nix character?"  
"I hope it doesn't come to that." Sally looked around, and checked the old-style   
timepiece hanging on her hut's wall. It was late. "I think that's all we can do tonight.   
Everyone get a good night's rest. We all need it."  
The Freedom Fighters grumbled their agreement, and all filed out of Sally's hut,   
with the exception of Bookshire and Bunnie. Bunnie had stayed to help Sally remove the   
weather-beaten conference table back to the storage shed, Bookshire to talk. As he was   
there, though, he helped the two lift the table.  
Bunnie was able to talk much more easily than the other two could; lifting the   
heavy length of wood hardly strained her roboticized muscles. "We'll find some way git   
the money, Sally-girl. We always figure out a way, especially when its for somethin' big,   
like this."  
Sally let that go unanswered. "Was there something you wanted to talk about,   
Bookshire?"  
"Yes," the raccoon wheezed. The table wasn't being very kind to his bad leg.   
"Worst-case scenarios."  
"Oh, those are always fun."  
Bookshire didn't respond to the sarcasm. "I'm not sure whatever medical supplies   
we have are ready to treat bullet wounds. I'll have to brush up on some of my old medical   
textbooks myself."  
Sally nodded soberly. If worst did come to worst, and the Freedom Fighters found   
themselves facing the wrong end of one of Nix's Uzis…   
"As near as I can figure from what you described, it should be similar to treating   
someone who's been hit by a piece of metal shrapnel. A bullet would create a much   
deeper wound, though. It's… almost an entirely new phenomenon for me, or any doctor   
still alive out there. I should be able to treat it with the right equipment… which I don't   
think we have."  
This was too much to worry about. Typical for the Freedom Fighters. "We'll just   
have to make do with what we've got, Booky."  
Bunnie opened the door of the storage shed with her non-roboticized limb, and the   
three of them tossed the conference table roughly into the pile. Bookshire exhaled   
sharply, glad to be free of the burden.  
"See y'all tomorrow, then," Bunnie said, and disappeared off into the darkness.   
Sally and Bookshire were alone.  
"How many gold coins do you think you can scrounge up from your hut's   
basement?" Sally asked.  
"No more than a thousand. I don't even know why I kept them, but I'm glad that   
they're finding some use now."  
"Hell's bells," Sally muttered. She didn't curse often, but was hardly aware of it   
now. "Let's hope that Lupe pulls through for us, or we *will* have to invade   
Robotropolis's warehouses."  
"Goodnight, Princess," Bookshire said, and then was gone.  
"G'night, Booky," she said to the darkness, and went back to her hut. Her sleep   
that night was fitful. She was constantly disturbed by a recurring nightmare: either herself   
or Sonic or Tails being gunned down by a hidden stranger with an Uzi. When she awoke,   
she couldn't help but feel that, as much help as the Uzi would be to the Freedom Fighters,   
it had somehow introduced something evil, something tainted, to her world.  
  
***  
Day Two  
  
The morning's weather had started foul, and had never improved. The usual   
streams of sunlight that filtered through the Great Forest's canopy of leaves was gone,   
blocked by a dark gray overcast sky. Instead, a fetid acid rain drizzled down from the   
stormy skies. In the clearing that Epos Nix had set up his camp, there were no trees to   
deflect the downpour, and it fell that much harder.  
Lupe shivered, shaking out her fur. It immediately became drenched again.   
Ordinarily, she would have been happy to see a thing like rain again; such things were rare   
in the desert of the Great Unknown, where she and her kin camped. But the pollution   
from Robotropolis's industrial factories had intermingled with the rain, making it   
unbearable to even feel.  
"Okay, Reynard, we can set it down here." Lupe guided the wooden chest   
carefully to the ground, and was glad to be free of the burden. She, Reynard, and Canus   
had traveled to Knothole bearing the strange cargo, as Princess Sally had asked. There   
was a heavy thump behind her as Reynard let his drop to the ground. His fur bristled with   
irritation: even with the aid of stolen hover pads, it had been a long walk, and they had   
never been clued in as to why the Knothole group needed Mobian currency so badly.  
Lupe sighed. She could tell already that this would interfere with her original plan   
for the trip. The Wolf Pack and the Knothole groups had agreed to meet to discuss a joint   
raid on Robotropolis, but now it looked as if everybody had other things on their minds.  
Sally never gave Reynard a chance to complain. She was in the clearing, as were   
several others from the Knothole group. Lupe recognized Sonic and the anxious French   
coyote, but she had never seen the half roboticized rabbit or the human before.  
"You pulled through!" Sally exclaimed after the Wolf Pack made their presence   
known. When Lupe had first spotted her, she had appeared more wearied than anything   
else. Now she was ecstatic.  
"Yes, although I confess I don't know why. Mobian coins have been worthless for   
over a decade."  
"How much?" Sally asked. Although Lupe didn't know Sally or any of the   
Knothole Freedom Fighters very well, she gave them the benefit of the doubt and assumed   
that this was important.  
"Twelve thousand. Like you asked." When Sally's eyes widened, Lupe offered an   
explanation. "There are many old treasuries hidden in the mountains that Robotnik never   
found out about, or never bothered to raid."  
The human broke out into a wide grin. An uncomfortable number of teeth flashed   
in the morning light. It made Lupe feel vaguely uneasy.  
"It appears that I was correct in trusting you, Princess," the human said. He   
trotted over and grabbed the crate that Lupe had dropped, as if it were his own. He lifted   
it easily back to his tent.  
Lupe glowered at Nix, and then at Sally. "What is all this?" her irritation got the   
better of her.  
Sally opened her mouth to speak, but Nix interrupted her. "I assumed that you   
were with the Knothole group. You're not?"  
"No."  
"My apologizes. My name is Epos Nix, and I'm an arms dealer. Who're you?"  
"None of your concern, Overlander!" Canus snarled. Lupe held up a hand, and   
Canus stopped.  
Sally sighed. "Epos Nix, this is Lupe, leader of the Wolf Pack Freedom Fighters.   
Lupe, Epos Nix." Nix raised his eyebrow.  
"Arms dealer?" Lupe asked, her curiosity piqued. "Is this man the reason you   
asked for Mobian currency?"  
"I'm afraid so." In a brief summary, Sally and Nix filled the Wolf Pack in on the   
bullet weapons. Sonic tapped his foot impatiently; he had heard all this before.  
"It sounds impressive," Lupe admitted at last. "But can I ask why you desire   
worthless Mobian coins?"  
Nix stared at her, emotionlessly. "No. You may not."  
Lupe turned to face the Freedom Fighters. "Have you field-tested these   
weapons?"  
Bunnie shook her head. "Well, Ah took a couple out last night and emptied a clip   
into some trees, just to make sure they worked. But if y'all mean tested against Robotnik,   
no, we haven't had the time."  
"There's a weapons trial I would enjoy taking part in," Reynard said. Despite his   
earlier frustration, he had been quite taken by Sally's description of the bullet weapons.  
"We may get the chance," Sally said. "Epos Nix has offered to train several people   
from Knothole in the use of the Uzi, personally. I have a few of my own people picked   
out. Would you three like Uzis of your own?"  
"That would be excellent."  
Sally smiled. "It looks like we may have a joint raid to plan, after all."  
  
Epos Nix said he wanted to get done with training the Freedom Fighters as soon as   
possible, so within hours all twelve Freedom Fighters were present, and quickly learning   
how to handle the Uzis.  
Lupe and the other two from the Wolf Pack were there, of course, as were Sonic,   
Sally, and Bunnie. Sally had introduced Lupe to the others from Knothole that were to   
receive Nix's weapons.  
At last, that loud rat-a-tat-tat reports of gunfire faded into the wilderness. Nix had   
proclaimed training over.  
Lupe snapped the clip off the bottom of her own Uzi's barrel, and wiped the sweat   
from her brow fur. Keeping control over the Uzi had been more difficult than anybody   
anticipated; all around, there was heavy breathing and collective exhaustion. Lupe had   
been waiting to ask this question all afternoon, in fact ever since she had first seen the   
Freedom Fighters, but now the question was caught in her throat. "Princess Acorn?"  
"Just Sally, please, Lupe," Sally answered.  
Lupe was going through the motions of cleaning the Uzi, exactly as Nix had   
taught. "There's something I have to ask you. I wanted to… earlier, when we first met in   
the Great Unknown, but… events interfered."  
"Sure. We all owe you one."  
"More than one," Canus grumbled from nearby. Lupe ignored him.  
"Over the past few years, I've heard some rumors about the Knothole Freedom   
Fighters. There was someone I knew, once. I heard he was with you."  
Sally nodded. "The coup split up more than one family. Someone related to you?"  
"I was hoping he would be, once. His name is Cat."  
Epos Nix was leaning against a nearby tree, casually eavesdropping. Rumors and   
information were often more valuable to his clientele than actual material goods. He saw   
Sally's face fall at the mention of the name Cat. Nix continued going through the motions   
of helping Antoine dissemble his weapon. Had he been anything but human, though, the   
immediate perking up of his ears would have given away his eavesdropping.  
Lupe couldn't see Sally's expression from her angle. She only saw her shoulders   
tense at the mention of the name. There was a moment's pause.  
"You *do* know him?" she asked eagerly.  
When Sally turned around, her face told Lupe everything.  
"Oh, Lupe, I'm so sorry…"  
  
Sonic dumped the crate just outside the storage shed, and kicked it the rest of the   
way in. The Uzis inside rattled.  
"Aw, come on, Sonic," Tails moaned behind him. "I'll be good, you know that!"  
Sonic smiled. "Sorry, big guy. But you know that Sal would freak out if she saw   
you playing with these things." He clipped a padlock in place on the shed's door and spun   
the dial. "Besides, I'm not all that comfortable with you and these guns myself."  
It was late evening in Knothole. He had carried Sally and Bunnie back home   
himself, but Lupe and her wolf pack insisted on walking the rest of the way and had only   
arrived in Knothole an hour ago. After giving her a quick tour, Sally and Lupe had   
disappeared into the dining hall for the rest of the evening.  
"But I'm training to be a Freedom Fighter now. I thought you and Sally trusted   
me."  
Sonic didn't have an answer for that; he just ruffled the fur on Tail's head, which   
only made the fox angrier. Over the past few months, he had taken exception to being   
treated as just a child. After last winter, he had even insisted that Sally stop reading aloud   
to him every night, a tradition which until then had gone unbroken ever since the day Tails   
had come to Knothole.  
"Hey," Sonic said, trying to change the subject. "I'll race you back to the dining   
hall?"  
That seemed to brighten the fox cub. "Okay." He wound up his two tails. His   
voice was near-perfect mockery of Sonic's usual catch phrase. "Time to juice and cut it   
loose!"  
A flash of blue and orange shot through Knothole. A combination of speed and   
darkness reduced Sonic's visibility as he raced through town, and once he thought   
something brushed his leg and grunted, but he couldn't see what. He beat Tails to the   
entrance of the dining hall by over a second. When Tails did come in, he was laughing.  
"You're lagging behind, big guy. What took so long?"  
Tails couldn't stop laughing. At the dining table a cluster of Freedom Fighters had   
gathered around Sally and Lupe. They all looked up at two new arrivals.  
"You knocked Geoff right off his feet," Tails managed at last to sputter. He broke   
out into another laughing fit. "He fell right into the mud!"  
Somewhere off in the distance a distinctly Aussie accent cursed and grumbled.  
Sonic grinned, and exchanged a quick high-five with Tails. "Score, the hedgehog."  
Inside the dining hall, Sally shook her head. "Charming, boys. Very charming."  
"Zat Geoffrey deserves eet," Antoine mumbled to himself.  
Sonic grabbed a chair. "So what's going in here? You like Knothole so far,   
Lupe?"  
"Um, yes. This is a very hospitable town," Lupe relented.  
"We were just exchanging stories," Sally cut in, "and waiting for you to get here.   
You're slow," she jibed. Sonic tried his best to ignore her.  
"So we're going to field-test these Uzis tomorrow, against Robotnik?"  
"That's right, and that's also another part of the meeting you were too slow to be   
here for. We've already decided on a target."  
Sonic felt his cheeks burning at Sally's continuing jabs to his ego. He shrugged it   
off. "Most boring part of any raid. I'm glad I missed it. But what are we going to hit?"  
Until this point, Nicole had been resting idly in Sally's hands. She flipped the tiny   
computer open. "Nicole, display targets one and two."  
Without a word, Nicole's circuitry buzzed with life, and a two-dimensional   
hologram map of Robotropolis flickered into existence at the center of the table. Red   
circles centered themselves on two buildings a city block apart.  
"Target one is right here, a large hover unit patrol that continually passes by   
Robotnik's massive Doomsday machine. Every two minutes, a patrol of at least ten   
different hover units fly a circling guard pattern across this street. We think that a small   
team on the ground, lead by Lupe, can take down enough of them and mix things up   
enough to create some confusion.  
"Once that's been accomplished, it should be easy enough to get a larger team, in a   
stolen hover craft, past what's left of the air guard and into Doomsday itself. Doomsday is   
our number two target."  
"Whoa, there. Just because we have Uzis, that doesn't mean we can take a   
monstrosity like Doomsday off-line that simply. Even with *me* on the team. There's too   
many SWATbutts," Sonic said.  
"I never said we could destroy Doomsday. But I think we can get into one of the   
pod manufacturing plants and blow it up. There will be SWATbots, yes, but I think we   
can at least get into one of the closer pod factories. The SWATbots shouldn't be any   
match for Nix's bullet weapons." Sally clicked Nicole shut, and the hologram wavered   
into nothingness.  
"Sounds like a plan, Sal."  
Bunnie chimed in. "Well, it is a change from what we're used to. Usually, on   
missions like these, we jus' sneak into whatever we want to destroy, and blow it up   
without another sound. But now we just go in with guns blazin'."  
"Yeah," Sonic agreed. "It does sound kinda military."  
Sally sighed, as if she regretted that. "Well, we're no longer just a group of a   
couple dozen teenagers holed up here in Knothole, alone. We've made contact with three   
other Freedom Fighter groups now, and have a global network set up to fight Robotnik.   
We're not in the shadows anymore. We can't afford to keep silent now."  
"I know Reynard and Canus would be eager to help. If we're going to attack   
tomorrow, though, I won't have time to call for reinforcements from the Wolf Pack camp   
in the Great Unknown," Lupe said.  
Sally nodded. "I think that we can get in and get out without much more help,   
though. Let's remember that this is just going to be a field test, so we're not going to do   
too much damage, or be there for very long. Is that it for tonight?"  
There was a collective nod.  
"All right. Let's get ready to hike out to Robotropolis first thing in the morning."   
With that, the Freedom Fighters dispersed. Some of them left for the night, others stayed   
behind to grab a late dinner. Sonic stopped Sally as she was about to step out the door.  
"A thought just struck the ol' brain, Sal. I thought that Epos didn't leave us with   
too much ammunition. Only 250 shots per gun, and if we fire on full automatic, we'll use   
it up pretty quickly. If this is just a field test, why waste so many bullets?"  
"Another part of the meeting you missed," Sally explained. "The twelve thousand   
coins that Lupe brought up from the Great Unknown weren't the only ones down there.   
She told us that there were still old treasuries dotting the landscape. Bringing up more   
coins to Knothole shouldn't be too much of a problem. Using those, we can pay Nix for   
more ammunition clips and rifles."  
"I still think that we should talk with Rote about this. See if he can make duplicate   
the clips for the Uzis."  
Sally smiled. "You *are* slow tonight. We're one step ahead of you. Rotor   
doesn't think he can make his own bullets, though. There's just not enough raw materials   
floating around."  
"Hmmmmm," Sonic frowned.  
"Not only that, but he said that he's never seen the like of the explosive compound   
that propels the bullets. He can't even identify the compound itself, let alone recreate it."  
"So we're completely dependent on this Nix for our bullets," the hedgehog mused.  
"For the time being. He seems trustworthy, though. Goodnight, Sonic." The two   
left together.  
Across the dining hall, Antoine grumbled to himself. He had been left on kitchen   
detail for the night. He gathered used plates from several tables, and dumped them   
unceremoniously in the sink.  
A spot of chili dripped off of Tails's plate and slipped past Antoine's apron, staining   
his Mobian Royal Guard uniform. He grumbled some more, and filled the sink with sudsy   
water.  
"Hey, Antoine!" Bunnie called from one of the tables. He turned around, grateful   
for the distraction. "Git over here for a second, would ya?" She, Bookshire, and Lupe   
were still seated at the table.  
Appreciative, Antoine slipped off the apron and joined took a seat next to Bunnie.   
"How may I be of assistance?" he asked.  
"Ant, you remember Cat, don'tcha?" Bunnie asked.  
Any Freedom Fighter who had been killed or roboticized was a sore point at   
Knothole, and Cat especially. He had been among the older Freedom Fighters, 36-years-  
old, and had been with them for over five years. Cat had very much been a loner at   
Knothole, but he occasionally agreed to come along on raids to Robotropolis. His age   
had evened earned him a nickname - 'old boy' - from Robotnik, who usually just addressed   
every Freedom Fighter as 'Rodent'.  
"Of course," Antoine nodded. "Who eez asking about Cat?"  
"I am," Lupe said.  
Bookshire looked at her and Antoine uncomfortably. "Lupe and Cat knew each   
other before the war. They were, uh, planning to get married."  
Antoine's ears perked. "A member of the Wolf Pack? But I thought -"  
Lupe interrupted. "This was something I was willing to leave the Pack for. Our   
traditions have never looked down kindly on inter-species marriages. I had planned to   
take exile. But… the coup interfered, and after my father was roboticized, I stayed with   
the Pack. I couldn't find out what happened to Cat."  
"I zee. I am sorry to be hearing zis. You and Cat must have been close."  
"Don't be sorry, Antoine. At least, now I know that he evaded capture for a few   
years. I know for sure what happened."  
Bookshire nodded. "We've been telling Lupe everything that we can remember   
about Cat while he was with us. We were wondering if you had a few stories to share, as   
well."  
"Of course, Loopy, I will be most happy to. I remember ze first time I saw Cat in   
action…" Antoine paused, as if remembering details, or inventing them. "Zere I was,   
surrounded by SWATbots at both my sides, and nothing but my bare hands as weapons…   
but I was not afraid! Zen I saw Cat, coming…"  
  
***  
Day Three  
  
Yesterday's rain hadn't yet given up; a new system was quickly moving through the   
Great Forest right on the heels of the last one. Although the clouds were thick over the   
forest, in Robotropolis they were invisible through the seemingly-permanent layer of   
smog. A thin drizzle of polluted acid rain was the only sign of any change in the weather.  
Once again, the rain seeped through Lupe's fur, irritating the skin underneath. The   
tainted industrial smog was much thicker over Robotropolis than it had been in the   
clearing, and it only made the polluted rain that much more insufferable. Lupe futility   
shook out her coat.  
"Two minutes," Rotor announced, never taking his eyes off his wristwatch. His   
hands were clenched around his Uzi's barrel, knuckles bleached white.  
Lupe, Canus, Reynard, Rotor, and Geoffrey St. John were all clustered together   
under the poor shelter of trash heap on one of Robotropolis's empty boulevards. Each had   
an Uzi held tightly in their hands.  
The communicator clipped to Lupe's belt echoed Rotor. "Two minutes," Sonic's   
voice said.  
The towering spire of Robotnik's monstrous Doomsday machine loomed   
menacingly over them.  
Lupe double-checked her weapon's banana clip, making sure that it was fastened   
on to the bottom exactly as Nix had showed her. She flipped the safety catch into the   
middle position. A series of echoing *clicks* indicated that the others were following suit.  
"Remember, we're only running interference, here. Our job is to attack the patrol   
units surrounding Doomsday and mix it up enough to let the others sneak in. Once that's   
accomplished, we run, and we run fast. No heroics," she said, mostly for Canus's benefit.   
The wolf scowled.  
"Yes, ma'am," Canus chided.  
The seconds ticked down. Lupe decided that she couldn't stand the silence.  
"Nobody blow straight through their ammunition, either; remember, it's   
expensive," she ordered, just for the sake of breaking the quiet. "Keep your rate of fire on   
the middle setting unless it's absolutely necessary to switch to full automatic. Aim for the   
front window of any hover units, as well. One well-aimed shot can punch through the   
windshield and hit the pilot."  
"Shaddup!" Geoffrey hissed. "We get it!"  
Rotor glared at Geoff, silencing him. Geoffrey was taken aback by the sudden   
ferocity of Rotor's eyes. Rotor turned to Lupe. "Is something… wrong? You seem   
nervous."  
Lupe sighed. "It's been a while since I've seen Robotropolis. Usually, the Wolf   
Pack only disrupts the operations of the fringes of Robotnik's territory, so -"  
"I said *shaddup*!" Geoffrey came close to yelling.  
Reynard appeared ready to shoot the skunk then and there. "What is wrong with-"  
Geoff cut him off again. "We just missed the countdown!"  
Lupe checked her watch. The timer had reached 0 quite a few seconds ago, while   
she was talking, and was now counting upwards. Angry at herself for missing it, she   
raised her hand, and waved the group out into the street. Showtime.  
"Honestly!" Geoffrey grumbled beside them. "Every bloody time I speak, people   
always assume I'm just mouthing off! Not this time, damn it!"  
  
Five figures walked calmly, if not fearlessly, down one of Robotropolis's camera-  
infested main boulevards. Whatever street lights were still functional cast a gloomy light   
down through the rain, silhouetting them against the depreciated muddy-brown buildings.   
It wasn't long before they were spotted.  
Distant sirens began to blare.  
The cameras effortlessly relayed their information to Robotropolis's traffic control   
computer, which was immediately put into effect an alert. The nearest available patrol, a   
group of six hover units flying a circular pattern around Doomsday, was rerouted to deal   
with the Freedom Fighters.  
Lupe could hear the whine of their approaching engines. "Everybody ready?" she   
said aloud. "Weapons to standby." She hoisted the Uzi, and pointed it down the   
boulevard towards the still-invisible hover units.  
Six blobs appeared through the smog and rain, racing perilously towards them.   
Their front mounted laser cannons were aglow with energy ready to fire.  
"FREEZE FREEDOM FIGHTERS," mechanical voices said in unison. "YOU   
ARE UNDER ARREST."  
Lupe lined up her sights.  
"Now we get to find out whether this was worth lugging those coins around,"   
Canus said under his breath. Lupe could see his barrel from the corner of her eye: it was   
facing the lead hover unit.  
"Fire," she ordered.  
Five weapons barked, and *something* smashed through the lead hover unit's   
windshield. Sparks flew up inside, and Lupe saw a brief glimpse of a fire. The bullets had   
smashed through the hover unit's armor like it was plate glass.  
The hover unit actually recoiled backwards, lost momentum, and smashed itself   
into fiery pieces on the ground. The sound of the explosion echoed throughout   
Robotropolis.  
The second hover unit loomed forward. "Fire," Lupe quickly said.  
Again, all five Uzis spat out a burst of fire. The windshield shattered, and the   
forward-mounted laser cannon's focusing crystal flew apart. Ragged holes tore into   
existence on the air ship's hull, but this one remained afloat after the first round of bullets.  
"Fire."  
It didn't last past the second wave of bullets, through, and crashed through the   
ceiling of a nearby building. Lupe didn't see what happened to it, other than a streak of   
fire shooting skyward from the impact point.  
The remaining hover units returned fire. A laser bolt as thick as Lupe's arm split   
the ground in front of her feet, kicking up a blast of dust. She ignored it, and trained her   
Uzi on another patrol unit.  
"Fire."  
  
"Construction status!" Snively barked, doing his best imitation of his uncle's   
furious demeanor.  
To his disappointment, but not to his surprise, the worker bot on the display screen   
didn't waver at his tone at all. Not even a critique of his acting. "Skeletal framework was   
completed 3.2 hours ago. A fusion generator was fused into place 2.6 hours ago, and is   
now operating at 75% capacity. Thrusters and weapons systems are online, and are   
operating at full capacity."  
"How long until the new Test Pod is completed?" he demanded, still trying to   
mimic Robotnik.  
"Another nine hours, sir," the worker bot responded in its infuriatingly aloof   
monotone.  
Snively decided to try a tactic Robotnik had used on him more than once. His   
voice became very calm. "Oh, no, worker, I can assure you that you'll have it done sooner   
than that."  
"We are already working at full capacity, sir."  
Snively's eyes narrowed. He had even begun to take down notes after Robotnik's   
yelling fits. "You will have the Test Pod completed in six hours. Is that understood?"  
"No, sir," the worker bot said flatly.  
Snively sighed, and decided to give up. He punched the comm channel clear.  
He was alone the Doomsday control room. The lights were dim – he preferred it   
that way. Occasionally, his hand rubbed tenderly across the fresh bruise that still   
blossomed across his bulbous forehead.  
After arriving in the Great Unknown five days ago, and finding Snively tied to the   
chair of his command unit and the Doomsday Test Pod destroyed, Robotnik had been   
very… upset. He had ordered the construction of a new Test Pod, and told Snively that   
he had two days to build it. Three days had now passed, and Snively had not heard a   
word come from the fat man since the day he had returned. He was getting worried.  
Even in his worst moods, even when he was on the verge of being pointlessly   
violent, Robotnik had always stayed in close contact with Snively, had always been there   
to look over his shoulder. Suddenly he was nowhere to be found.  
Perhaps the fat man had had a heart attack and died in bed, Snively mused   
devilishly.  
No, he decided finally, nothing like that had occurred. For Robotnik to die would   
mean that a good thing had happened to Snively, and Snively had learned by now that   
good things never happened to him.  
Alone in the dark, he eyed the small, red oval door perched out of the way in the   
Doomsday control room. He watched it carefully for a moment, as if expecting it to open,   
and then turned back to the communications panel and called for another worker bot.   
Within moments, one trundled into the room.  
"Yes, sir?" the bot asked in the same superior tone all worker robots seemed to   
possess. Snively scowled.  
"I want you to install an elevator in the floor of this room. One that leads to an   
underground escape hatch," Snively ordered.  
"But sir," the worker bot protested, pointing towards the red door. "This room is   
already equipped with an escape vehicle, in case of emergency."  
Snively cracked a smile. "I know. Install it anyway."  
"Yes, sir." The bot obediently rolled out of the room, in the general direction of   
the closest supply shed.  
Snively continued smiling to himself, and kicked his feet up on the control panel,   
and rested. With Robotnik nowhere near, and the worker bots taking care of his work for   
him, he could afford to relax -  
For a moment, Snively thought his feet had accidentally kicked an important   
button, for an alarm started blaring in the distance. He realized quickly enough that the   
blaring klaxon had nothing to do with him: it was the tone of Robotropolis's intruder   
alarm.  
Almost at random, he flicked a switch on his communication channel, and came   
face to face with a SWATbot somewhere in the city. "Report!" Snively bellowed.  
"Freedom Fighters, sir. Hover unit patrol nine has been scrambled to intercept and   
arrest."  
Snively growled. With his uncle gone missing over the last several days, he found   
it easier and easier to let his anger get the better of him. "Has Robotnik been alerted?" he   
asked.  
"Negative."  
That meant Snively would have to inform Robotnik himself. He grunted under his   
breath, braced himself, and hit the button on his communication panel marked only   
"ROBOTNIK". There was a momentary pause as Robotropolis's computers searched the   
city for him, and another pause as it waited for Robotnik to respond to the   
communication.  
The computer beeped, and informed Snively that it had found Robotnik. He was   
hidden inside the underused facility used to create robot replicants of real people -- it had   
been used only once, to create a robot clone of Princess Sally. The replicant hadn't lasted   
long, and the facility had gone unused ever since. Robotnik's fat, angry face winked into   
existence on the screen.  
The only hair on his face, a pair of plucky orange whiskers, were unkempt and   
disheveled. Robotnik *never* kept them disheveled. "What is it?" Robotnik snapped.  
"Er," Snively stuttered, "Freedom Fighters, sir. Attacking near the Doomsday   
tower."  
A hiss of malice escaped Robotnik's lips. "The hedgehog?"  
Snively checked another computer monitor, which was rapidly ticking off data   
about the intruders. The computer had already identified them. "No, sir, though it seems   
that two of his friends, the skunk and the walrus, are with them. The others are from the   
Wolf Pack."  
"The wolves?" Robotnik narrowed his eyes. "Don't bother to capture them,   
Snively. Kill them."  
"Y-Yes, sir," Snively said, surprised. "But, sir, usually you lead the counter-  
assault yourself! I don't think I can -"  
"You will take care of it, Snively, by yourself!" Robotnik's next words shocked   
him even more. "I'm too busy to bother with the Freedom Fighters right now!" He   
clicked off.  
Too busy to deal with the Freedom Fighters? Even when they were perilously   
close to the Doomsday project? Snively shrugged -- perhaps his uncle was finally showing   
him some gratitude by giving him some self-autonomy.  
Yeah, sure. That'd be the day.  
Snively keyed his communications panel into the Robotropolis security mainframe.   
"Patch me into the camera closest to the Freedom Fighters," he ordered. "I want to watch   
the fight."  
The computer monitor blinked yet again. Snively saw the silhouettes of five   
Freedom Fighters proceed down the dirt boulevard. The ground was so soaked with rain   
as to become a sticky mud. Snively was glad he wasn't out there himself.  
The six hover units were approaching from the south end of the street. Snively   
watched with interest as the intruders hoisted some sort of compact rifle, all pointing it   
towards the lead air car. If they thought that hand-held weapons were any kind of match   
for an armored hover unit -  
The Freedom Fighters snapped off several shots, and curiously loud booms echoed   
across Robotropolis. The lead hover unit crashed to the ground. A second soon   
followed.  
Snively grunted. He should've known that the Freedom Fighters were not to be   
underestimated. "Return fire!" he bellowed.  
For a moment, nothing happened. Then Snively remembered that he actually had   
to be patched into the hover units themselves to issue orders. He did so sheepishly.   
"Return fire!" he ordered again.  
Laser fire rained down on the boulevard. And from there, the ordered fight   
degenerated into a fray. Dust was kicked up, obscuring the camera's view. Snively saw   
one of the Freedom Fighters take a hit from a hover unit's laser and crumple, but he   
couldn't tell which one. The remaining intruders scattered.  
Several more of the loud 'boom' noises reverberated across the polluted streets.   
Snively listened to it, and frowned. The noise was… almost familiar.  
Something ancient, something he hadn't thought about in years resurfaced and   
jogged his memory. "That's a sound I haven't heard since…" he trailed off. Suddenly, the   
sound and the weapons clicked into place in his head.  
His eyes popped. "It can't be! All available hover units, reinforce patrol nine! Kill   
those Freedom Fighters!"  
  
The stolen hover unit shook for a moment. The air outside rumbled with a heavy   
noise; for a moment, Sally thought that it was thunder from the storm over Robotropolis.   
Then she looked out the windshield, and saw a bright yellow flame lick upwards from a   
street near the Doomsday machine.  
Sonic grinned. "Looks like Lupe's doing her job."  
A familiar frantic voice came to life through the hover unit's radio. "All available   
hover units, reinforce patrol nine! Kill those Freedom Fighters!" it commanded. The   
message had been sent to every hover unit within a five kilometer radius of Robotropolis.  
"Nothin' doin', Snidely. Sorry to disappoint you."  
"It's working, Sally," Bookshire interrupted, taking his eyes off the pilot's panel for   
an instant to look at the glowing radar screen. "Every hover unit in the area is scrambling.   
Normal traffic routines are a complete mess, now. We should be able to slip into the   
Doomsday tower without anybody noticing."  
Sally waved at the hideous, half-completed metal tower. "Take us in, then." She   
turned to the back of the hover unit. "Everybody ready?"  
The other Freedom Fighters, crammed like sardines into the back of the   
claustrophobic hover unit, grunted or waved some sort of affirmation. "Sure, sugar, just   
git us out of here." The hover units weren't equipped with air conditioning units, and a   
hour's worth of body heat was trapped inside the metal walls. The heat was sweltering.  
"Yes, it is not to be smelling too good back here," Antoine added, wrinkling his   
nose and looking pointedly at Sonic.  
"Hey, you're not exactly stink-free yourself, Ant," Sonic shot back irritably.  
The hover unit coasted easily over to the Doomsday tower, drawing no attention   
from any nearby patrols or guards. Bookshire guided the craft to a gentle landing on an   
empty docking platform. He peered out the windshield, carefully checking for any   
SWATbots, before he opened the circular door. A gust of cool, if not fresh, air poured in.   
Sirens were audible in the distance.  
Sonic's feet hit the deck first with the quiet slap of his sneakers on metal, followed   
by Bunnie's metallic legs hitting the surface with a jarring thud. Sally landed lightly next to   
her. No SWATbots immediately rushed out to them.  
Sally took a deep, welcome breath. Even the smoggy, ozone-filled air of   
Robotropolis was better than what had been stench of the hover unit. And it was *cool*   
out here.  
Neophyte and Anacharis, the other two Freedom Fighters who had each received   
one of the dozen Uzis, were out next. Antoine came out last, holding his own Uzi in   
shaking fingers. Sonic's words to Sally on the subject of Antoine still burned in her ears:   
"Come on, Sal, I would sooner trust Tails with a weapon like that. Not Ant."   
Nevertheless, Sally had chosen Antoine as one of the Freedom Fighters to have the   
weapons, although right now the reason escaped her.  
Bookshire remained inside, his own Uzi resting on the computer console. His bad   
leg had reduced him to the role of pilot; he would only hold the other Freedom Fighters   
back once inside. "Don't forget, Booky," Sally reminded him, "if the 'bots find you, just   
leave. We'll find our own way out of the city if that happens." Bookshire nodded gravely,   
and slid the hover unit's door shut. The plan was for him to remain there until the others   
returned.  
"I don't know how he can stand it in there," Bunnie said. "It's just too darn hot."  
None of the others answered. "Check your Uzis," Sally ordered. "Make sure the   
clip is loaded properly."  
The raiders checked the undersides of their Uzis, and nodded. "Let's go."  
Sonic crept quietly over to the door leading into the interior of the Doomsday   
machine, and opened it carefully. There was nothing but a dim, empty corridor beyond.  
The six raiders moved cautiously through the hallway, making as little noise as   
possible. Even Bunnie somehow managed to force her clunky roboticized feet to tiptoe.  
"Too easy," Sonic said under his breath. "There's no way Robotnik would leave a   
place like the Doomsday machine so unguarded!"  
"That's right," a very familiar, very nasal voice said from a unseen speaker nearby.   
Sally gaped in surprise. "Robotnik uses mostly cameras and hidden surveillance   
equipment to alert him to intruders. Quite effective if I do say so myself."  
Doors to either side of the Freedom Fighters slammed down from the ceiling,   
trapping them in a small section of the corridor.  
"A trap!" Antoine whispered unnecessarily. "We are doom-ed!"  
"After all," Snively continued, still talking from a speaker that remained veiled.   
The voice seemed to be coming from the metal walls themselves. "Why trust SWATbots   
that have proven so fallible in the past, when a simple provision of motion and heat   
sensors can alert you to anything out of order, hmmmm?"  
Neophyte snarled. "I should've killed you when I had the chance."  
"Maybe you should have," Snively agreed. "Oh, well, too late now. I can assure   
you that you won't be getting any second opportunities."  
Sonic hated traps. He hated *being* trapped. Between the door secure doors,   
there was maybe as much space for the six Freedom Fighters as there had been in the   
hover car. He leveled a finger at one of the walls, just for something to point at.   
"Anything you throw at us, Sniv, we can take on. You won't get us."  
"But I already have you," Snively said. A metallic sigh echoed across the narrow   
space. "Never mind. I have a proposal for you Freedom Fighters."  
"A what?" Sonic spat.  
"A proposal. If you tell me something, I'll let you go ahead and do whatever you   
were planning to do to Doomsday. I won't stop you. I don't care what happens to this   
place."  
Sally rolled her eyes. "I suppose, then, that you want to know the location of   
Knothole? You know we'd die first."  
A short, harried laugh echoed through the chamber. "Knothole? Your little village   
doesn't matter to me. Go, frolic in the trees for all I care."  
"We're supposed to believe you? After everything you've done for Robotnik?"   
Neophyte yelled to the walls.  
Snively was suddenly irate. "In case you haven't noticed, I'm not on good terms   
with the obese bastard! Can't you see this - no, I suppose you can't see it, you don't have   
a video link on your end… this damned bruise! It covers half my face! And that was one   
of his light beatings!"  
Before Neo could shout back, Sally stopped her. "What do you want, in exchange   
for letting us go?"  
"Tell me where you got the guns that you're holding."  
Sally was taken aback. "The Uzis?"  
"Of course, that's what they're called. I remember now. Your friends outside are   
using them to create quite an impression on the SWATbots. Tell me about them," Snively   
said.  
Sally wasn't about to betray Epos Nix to either Robotnik or Snively. "A village, a   
hidden village, camped out in the Great Unknown has been manufacturing them for the   
past several years," she lied. "The Wolf Pack have known them for quite some time."  
"I know that's a lie, Princess," Snively reprimanded. "Let me rephrase my   
question. I know exactly *where* you got the Uzis. What I want to know is *how* you   
got them."  
"Huh?"  
"Do I have to spell it out for you? How did you find the Eherth?" Snively burst   
out. Like the name Uzi, the 'Eherth' was a word that Sally had never heard before.  
"Eherth!" Snively insisted again, then he sighed. "E-A-R-T-H. Earth!"  
"I have no idea what you're talking about," Sally said.  
"I'm sure you do," Snively said coldly. "The simple fact of the matter is, if you   
don't tell me, I will have to order the SWATbots to kill you. All of you. And your friend   
sitting out on the air ship dock, too."  
"Go ahead, Snidely," Sonic taunted. "Try. You won't be able to."  
"Don't tempt me, hedgehog."  
Neophyte interrupted. "What if we do tell you something? What happens then?   
You kill us anyway?"  
"No, no, I won't kill you. I'll simply let you go, with one simple provision. When   
you're done doing whatever you're doing to Doomsday, I want to come with you."   
Snively's voice became uncharacteristically vulnerable. "I want you to take me away from   
here, from this damned world. I want you to take me home. Earth."  
That caught the Freedom Fighters by surprise. "Home?" Sally exclaimed. "I   
thought Robotropolis was your home."  
Snively gave a quiet, bitter chuckle. "Robotropolis could never be my home,   
Princess. Please, take me to Earth, and I swear I won't bother you anymore. I'll even tell   
you everything I know about Robotnik's armies."  
"We still can't help you, Snively. None of us have any idea what an 'Earth' is."  
Sniv's tone darkened. "You will tell me. I wasn't joking when I threatened you. I   
can kill you all."  
"Then I guess that's your only option, needlenose!" Sonic jabbed.  
"I urge you to reconsider. I have fifty SWATbots moving to your position right   
now. Most of them are already outside the door. Tell me how you found the Earth, and   
I'll call them off."  
Sonic shrugged nonchalantly, and grinned. He shook his head.  
"Please." Snively said. His voice was weak. "Of anything I've ever wanted, I've   
ever needed, out of my wretched life, this is it. I'll do anything."  
"We can't help you," Sally said coldly. "We don't know anything."  
Snively's voice hardened. "I'm sorry you feel that way. At least I might be able to   
get some answers from your corpses." With a *click*, Snively's voice was gone.  
"All SWATbots!" Snively's voice barked again, this time not only in the little   
section of corridor that Sonic and the others were trapped in, but throughout the entire   
Doomsday complex. "Proceed to Section 7, Yellow corridor. Override Priority One   
Hedgehog orders; do not attempt to capture him or his friends. Instead, kill the   
intruders."  
Sally felt a chill shiver along her spine. "Let's hope that was worth it. Everyone   
switch your Uzis to full automatic. This could get rough."  
"Could?" Neophyte snorted, as she deftly flipped the Uzi's safety catch to its   
bottom position.  
"So what now, Sal?" Sonic asked, a little anxious. The doors trapping them in the   
hallway hadn't moved since Snively's voice left them.  
"Now, we wait for the SWATbots to come, and try and blow through them. We   
might have to scratch our original plan of destroying the Doomsday Pod manufacturing   
site. If we see an exit, we have to use it."  
Several empty seconds ticked by. Sonic tapped his foot in impatience, then looked   
at Antoine and sighed melodramatically.  
"No, Ant, the switch goes into the bottom position! Sheesh! And try not to   
accidentally shoot any of us, huh?" Antoine's own Uzi was shaking in his trembling hands.  
"We are doom-ed!" he whispered again.  
The security doors sealing them in the hallway whisked open. Sally didn't even   
wait to see any of the SWATbots before she shouted, "Fire!"  
Six Uzis, in full automatic mode, spat fire into the numerous 'bots lined up outside.   
Head and chest armor shattered instantly. Beyond a stream of yellow muzzle-fire and   
shards of flying metal, Sally couldn't see anything. Apparently, neither could the   
SWATbots - several laser blasts went streaming past her, none of them passing anywhere   
close. She just aimed her own Uzi down the corridor, and kept the trigger pressed.  
Nothing above the deafening reports of the Uzi's chemical explosions was audible.   
The rat-a-tat-tat sound of bullet weapons simply overwhelmed any other sound.  
The barrel, streaming bullets, tried to move away from her. What was it Nix had   
said? On full automatic mode, the Uzi tended to recoil up and to the right. Sally forced   
her arm to compensate.  
Antoine had his eyes clenched shut as he fired.  
Gradually, there seemed to be fewer and fewer lasers ricocheting off the walls near   
them, and fewer pieces of metal armor flying into the air. Finally, Sally could see clearly.   
There were only a few SWATbots left. Sally only noticed that her Uzi had run out of   
bullets when the weapon stopped trying to recoil and fight her arm. The chamber clicked   
dry. Within a few instants, the other Freedom Fighters had drained their clips, too.  
Moving with a speed to rival Sonic's, Neophyte pulled another clip from her belt   
and slammed it onto the underside of her Uzi. Her shots finished off the remainder of the   
SWATbot armada. The last metal carcasses fell to the floor and lay motionless.  
Sonic cheered. Neophyte grinned. The other Freedom Fighters merely exchanged   
heavy glances. "Definitely worth paying Nix!" Sonic shouted. "That was too fun!"  
The sound of more metal boots echoed throughout the corridor. More bots were   
on their way.  
"Well, Sal, what's it gonna be? Do we head back to the hover unit and get out of   
here? Or do we risk everything and keep moving towards the Pod factory?"  
Sally looked at the piles of metal bodies on the floor, and the Uzi in her hand.   
Then she looked at the corridor ahead, thumping with the sound of approaching   
SWATbots.  
"No question," she said, snapping a fresh clip into her Uzi. "We keep going."  
"I was gonna keep going anyway," Sonic grinned, and waved the group forward.   
Within a matter of moments, all the Uzis were launching bullets again.  
  
Whatever scattered SWATbots had remained in the corridors were quickly   
dispatched by the rain of bullet fire. Nicole lead them unwaveringly through the twisted   
hallways to the first Pod manufacturing plant. By design, it had only been a short distance   
from the docking pad Bookshire had landed at. Neophyte was already on her third clip.  
When the door wouldn't open, Sonic blasted the locking mechanism with a single   
bullet. The entrance remained stubbornly shut. Finally, Bunnie kicked it down with a   
single punt from her roboticized leg. It fell, and landed on the other side with a jarring   
thud that echoed off far-away walls.  
The factory was cavernous in scope. Walls stretched out and away from the door,   
fading into the midnight darkness not far away. Machinery, conveyer belts, and control   
panels were scattered throughout the room. So were SWATbots.  
There was another short exchange of bullets and laser fire. A very short exchange.  
"Ow," Sonic said, gently rubbing a patch of singed quills. "One of their laser shots   
actually came close this time."  
Sally looked around, sluggishly trying to recall the functions of the machinery   
around her. She had learned from experience that the schematics of a room and its actual   
reality often looked very different; what was very simple on paper was could be very   
complicated in truth.  
That pit, right there, at the center of the room… Sally focused on it… if   
Doomsday were operational, that pit would be full of roboticized worker bots, assembling   
the metal skeletal framework for the pods. That machine, there, looked as if it produced   
parts for the engine that drove the pods. Coolant tubes. There, lying dissembled in a box,   
were pieces that looked as if they belonged on the massive laser cannon perched below the   
Doomsday pods.  
Down a massive conveyer belt, the factory led into rooms beyond Sally's field of   
vision, presumably there to equip the half-assembled pods with their impenetrable hulls,   
and the supplies that allowed the pods to destroy acres of forest and life per second.  
"Let's torch it!" Sonic proclaimed. He reached down into his backpack, and pulled   
out a small remote explosive. The last time he had used one was when the Freedom   
Fighters had tried to crush the test pod under a rockslide in the Great Unknown. Holding   
it like a grenade, he threw it into the framework assembly pit. Then he took out the   
remote that controlled the explosive.  
"Adios!"  
The ground shook, and fire spewed from the floor. Whatever alarms they hadn't   
triggered in their mad dash through the corridors of the Doomsday tower went off now,   
adding to the cacophony of light and sound.  
"Here, Sal, catch!" he said, taking two more charges from his satchel and tossing   
one of them to Sally. She tossed hers down the central conveyer belt, and heard it rattle   
out of sight. Sonic threw his into a faraway bank of computers, and pulled out the   
detonator remote again.  
Fire, thunder, and more than a little debris spilled across the ground in front of the   
Freedom Fighters. Neophyte cheered. Antoine screamed.  
"Can it, Ant!" Sonic shouted before whipping out another batch of explosives.   
Again, tossing one to Sally, he whipped his down the array of factory equipment. Sally   
threw hers towards the weapon component bin. Sonic's remote control beeped at his   
button presses, and with a moment the explosives went off again. The pod factory was   
falling apart.  
Antoine never stopped screaming. Sonic's remote control continued to beep,   
though Sally couldn't think of a reason why.  
Sonic pulled another explosive out his backpack. He had brought along quite a   
few. The remote continued to make the blipping sound, louder than it had before. The   
beeps took on a regular pattern, sounding somewhat familiar, though Sally couldn't place   
the noise.  
"Sonic, would you stop pressing buttons on that machine?" Sally snapped.  
Sonic looked at her, wide-eyed. "It's not my remote, Sal!" He had to raise his   
voice to be heard above Antoine's unbroken shriek.  
"Then what-"  
Sally suddenly fit the noise in her memory, and instantly spun around. She saw   
why Antoine was screaming, and felt like following his lead.  
The last time she had heard that particular pattern of beeping had been in the Great   
Unknown, five days ago, coming from Robotnik's Doomsday pod.  
A massive skeleton of an air ship loomed in the shadows, creeping closer and   
closer, emitting the beeping noises.  
"I don't believe it!" Sonic exclaimed.  
"You really didn't think we were going to build just one Test Pod, did you?"   
Snively's voice boomed from the shadows. "After you Freedom Fighters destroyed the   
first one in the Great Unknown, Robotnik became *very* angry. He charged me with   
building another one."  
The metal goliath floated out of the shadows. It was half-completed - a mere   
skeletal framework built in the shape of a Test Pod. Where, on the first Test Pod, Sally   
had seen an unbreakable shiny hull, now there was only a gridwork of iron frames and   
bars. It looked ridiculously like a child's puzzle, or a sculpture made of toothpicks.  
The engines and computer drive of the Test Pod had barely been installed, yet both   
seemed functional. White-hot thrust boosters kept the device lifted off the ground, and   
propelled it inexorably towards the Freedom Fighters. More important, however, was the   
fact that the enormous laser cannon had been installed on Pod's underside, and it was   
directed at the Freedom Fighters. Sally imagined a straight red line leading straight from   
the barrel of the cannon to a spot on her forehead.  
"This is your last chance, Princess," Snively's voice hissed. "Tell me what I want   
to know!"  
Sonic hurled the last explosive at the new Test Pod, and detonated it. The   
eruption was closer this time: a shock wave of compressed air slammed into the six   
Freedom Fighters. An invisible arm threw Sally's lithe frame to the ground.  
The charge had fallen right between the pod's metal frame, and had detonated from   
the inside. The structure of the unfinished Test Pod was surprisingly strong, and managed   
to somehow stay in one piece. But it shook the pod harshly, and, for an instant, disrupted   
the laser cannon's aim. A shot seared through the air above Sally's prone form, and   
slammed into the ceiling to release a shower of sparks.  
"Book it!" Sonic shouted, grabbing Sally with one hand and Antoine with the   
other. He dashed for the corridor entrance, followed closely by Bunnie, Anacharis, and   
Neophyte, who slammed the door shut behind her.  
In the corridor, Sally managed to get back on her feet. "Thank you," she stuttered,   
still trying to catch her breath. The concussion had knocked the air out of her lungs.  
"No prob," Sonic said, egotism coming easily. "That Doomsday Pod won't be able   
to follow us down the corridor; it's too large to fit through the doorway. Should we jam   
back to Knothole?"  
"No question," Sally repeated herself, fully aware of the irony. "We run."  
They ran.  
  
The wake of the stolen hover unit's thrusters drew a white streak across the sky,   
shooting away from the gridwork of the unfinished Doomsday tower like a comet. Three   
of Robotropolis's hover units immediately fell behind in pursuit. Laser fire from the   
trailing airships streamed across the sky.  
Two hundred meters above the gritty and blackened Robotropolian streets,   
Bookshire opened the port-side doors of the craft, and Bunnie fell out. Her legs were   
secured to the floor of the hover unit, jerking her body back. She hung suspended upside-  
down, half-way outside the hover unit. Soot-filled alleyways and factories became the   
sky, and the ever-present smog became the distant ground. Disorientation became   
permanent, and would have overwhelmed her had she not been prepared for it. Blood   
rushed to her head.  
Laser fire burned through the air around her. Her robotic left hand tightened   
around the rifle-like form of Nix's bullet weapons. Although Bookshire tried his best to   
keep the airship steady, the craft still shook with turbulence. It was why this was Bunnie's   
task.  
Unconsciously, almost mathematically, compensating for the bumps and jars of the   
flight, her roboticized arm took aim at the closest hover unit. Internal servos and balances   
guaranteed a steady aim. Bunnie let loose a single bullet.  
With precise marksmanship, the bullet slammed through the windshield of the   
pursuing craft and through the SWATbot pilot's red-tinted front visor. The airship simply   
dropped, falling almost gracefully to the city below.  
The other two hover units, operating under Snively's orders, peeled away. Bunnie   
pulled herself up and back into the hover unit, grateful when the doors slid shut again, and   
blocked out the deafening wind.  
"Nice shootin', Tex!" Neophyte grinned wolfishly.  
"Ah don't understand. Why did the others leave us alone?" Bunnie asked.  
Bookshire jabbed a finger at the rear camera monitor. "That's why!"  
On Doomsday, a launch bay at the pinnacle of the tower had opened. The metal   
skeleton of the half-completed Test Pod slid out, moving inexorably towards the stolen   
hover unit. The bottom-mounted laser cannon was trained directly at them. Fusion   
engines burned with energy  
"Oh mah stars!"  
The hover unit raced towards the Great Forest, outrunning the Test Pod. When it   
finally lost sight its quarry, the pod slid to a reluctant halt, and hovered in the air. A   
thought ran through the mind of its pilot.  
"You'll be seeing this Pod again. Do worry. This time, there won't be any   
lightning storms."  
Doomsday Test Pod #2 slid silently back towards Robotropolis.  
  
Snively grumbled to himself, and pressed the button on his console labeled   
"ROBOTNIK". This wasn't going to be easy. After a momentary pause, the monitor   
flickered, and connected to the underused replicant lab.  
Whatever room the computer had found Robotnik in was completely dark. There   
was no immediate trace of the obese human. Nothing was visible on the monitors except a   
few indistinct shadows, cast as if by a single computer display. Snively waited.  
"I'm afraid I'm going to have to insist upon payment in advance," a distant man,   
sound distorted by the background static of radio transmission, said.  
"Oh?" a deep, unmistakably metallic voice rumbled. "Why is that?"  
"Doctor Robotnik, sir?" Snively ventured. The conversation ceased.  
An almost completely spherical, red-draped body became visible, blocking some of   
the background. "What is it, Snively?" he growled. A disheveled orange mustache   
twitched angrily in the sparse light.  
"An update on the Freedom Fighters, sir."  
"How many have you eliminated, Snively? Go on."  
"Well, sir… one. I think."  
"*One*? You *think*?" Robotnik's voice became deathly calm.  
"One of the hover units managed to shoot one of the attackers. Before we could   
do anything else, though, one of the other rebels dragged the body off. We can't be sure   
of what happened to it!"  
"They dragged… Snively, are you trying to tell me that the others escaped?"  
"Yes, sir," Snively squeaked.  
Robotnik's metal arm trembled momentarily, and he sucked in a breath through his   
teeth.  
Snively had to force the next words out of his quivering lips. "There's more, sir.   
While we were occupied on the streets, another group of the freedom fighters somehow   
managed to steal inside the Doomsday machine and sabotage one of the pod   
manufacturing plants."  
Robotnik was motionless, which was all the more unnerving.  
"I managed to use the new Test Pod to frighten them away, sir, but not after they   
caused considerable damage. I can't finish building the Test Pod until we repair the   
tower."  
Robotnik remained silent. His massive chest rose and fell with the sound of his   
breath.  
"It wasn't my fault, sir!" Snively burst out, fearing for his life. "They had some   
new kind of weapon! The SWATbots were useless!"  
There was only the sound of Robotnik's breathing for several moments.   
Somewhere, in an area that Snively couldn't see, a third person chuckled softly, then fell   
silent.  
"Will this affect Doomsday's projected completion date?" Robotnik asked calmly.  
"Uh, no, sir," Snively stammered.  
"Then it is no matter." The monitor switched itself off.  
Snively was left staring at the communications panel, slack-jawed and still   
trembling, anticipating the blows that would never come.  
  
Rotor had learned a long time ago how easy it was to lose pursuit in the scrap   
yards on the fringe of Robotnik's city. He had lead the others through it, either hiding   
from or blowing through SWATbots who stood in their way. From there, getting back to   
Knothole had been almost routine. Rotor saw the stolen hover unit parked on the edges   
of the town, and knew that the others had returned first.  
"Bookshire!" he called, as soon as he was within shouting distance of Knothole.   
"Get Bookshire out here! We need some help!"  
Reynard could barely move, now. With one arm draped around Geoffrey and the   
other around Lupe, his feet had stopped trying to make the effort of supporting   
themselves long ago and now just dragged limply against the ground. The hover unit's   
laser blast had hit his midsection full center, but at least some of it had at least been   
deflected by an arm Reynard had cast upwards as soon as he had seen the blast coming.   
His stomach, sides, and arm were bloodied.  
Bookshire dashed towards the group and cursed softly when he saw Reynard.   
"Get him to my hut," he said quickly, helping Lupe and Geoff support the wounded wolf.   
Arms full, he kicked open the door to his hut, which doubled as Knothole's infirmary. All   
three of them set Reynard gently down on the closest bed.  
"There's been a lot of blood loss," Bookshire said, tearing open a drawer and   
pulling out the largest strip of sterilized cloth he could find, and fastening it to the wound.   
"He's losing consciousness."  
"There wasn't any time to make a makeshift bandage," Rotor burst out.  
Sally rushed into the hut, wide eyes looking down at Reynard.  
"Third degree burns at the wound itself," Bookshire said, rattling off symptoms.   
"Fortunately the heat cauterized some of the arteries; otherwise the blood loss would have   
killed him. His breathing is erratic. You," he pointed at Canus, "go get me some   
sedatives. Closet at the end of the hallway."  
Canus nodded, and dashed down the hall.  
"There's been major intestinal damage. Arterial flooding and blockage."  
"What'll happen to him?" Lupe asked urgently.  
"He'll live," Bookshire answered, then added, "I think. But he'll be lucky if his   
circulation and digestive systems aren't permanently shot." Canus returned with the   
sedatives. Draftwood pumped the liquid into a syringe, and stuck it into Reynard's arm.   
The wolf's breathing became regular.  
"Let's clear out of here," Sally suggested softly, "and give Bookshire some room."  
Reluctantly, they all left just as Reynard lapsed into unconsciousness.  
  
That night, Sally dreamt again of Epos Nix and his bullet weapons. She saw an   
army of shaded figures advancing, armed with bullet weapons, massacring her planet's   
future…  
  
***  
Day Five  
  
The sun rose and fell twice more before Reynard had come to again. That had   
been early this morning, the last time Tails had been in Knothole. It was mid-afternoon,   
now.  
As much as he had begged to be allowed to do this, as much as he wanted to be a   
Freedom Fighter, there were times that Tails hated sentry duty. It was unbearably hot.   
Nothing ever happened. What was worse, was that when things were happening back at   
Knothole or in Robotropolis, he couldn't be part of it if he were out here.  
But *Sonic* had said that this was the kind of thing that Freedom Fighters had to   
do, and Tails had made up his mind a long time ago to become a Freedom Fighter. Like   
Aunt Bunnie always said, when you really wanted something, you had to put that much   
effort into getting it.  
The sun was high enough to be beating its rays directly down on top of the   
lookout platform. The canopy provided absolutely no shade now, and to make matters   
worse, Tails had been late in shedding his winter fur. Under the sun's tenacious rays, Tails   
could feel his body's biorhythms slowly grinding down. He was strongly tempted to   
stretch out on the platform, use his two tails as pillows, and just doze off. He had seen   
Antoine do it countless times.  
Tails shook his head in a definite 'no'. Just because Antoine did something bad,   
that didn't mean that he should do it, too. In fact, that was more of a deterrent than   
anything else. He pulled out his pair of binoculars, and scanned across the horizon for   
what seemed like the hundredth time.  
And for the hundredth time, all he saw were trees. Discouraged, he pulled the   
binoculars down, but then saw something move out of the corner of the binoc's field of   
view. Tails scanned for it.  
There! A figure moving! Tails trained the binoculars on it and let the auto-focus   
kick in. It was a person, a cougar, limping slowly down a small dirt trail. It was hurt.  
Tails refocused on the face, and frowned. The cougar was hurt very badly. It   
moved its right leg like it was dead weight. The left arm was twisted into a position that   
just seemed wrong. A red liquid, blood, Tails realized, dribbled down the cougar's brow   
and face. The fur crowning its head was matted down with dried blood. Tails made a   
face; he hadn't seen anything this gross since the others had dragged Reynard into town   
two days ago.  
Yet, despite these ailments, the cougar was hauntingly familiar.  
Both of Tails' tails shot straight into the air.   
Immediately, he darted over to the small radio the others had given him. "Aunt   
Bunnie?" he asked, holding down the 'transmit' button.  
He let go, and waited through a moment of static.  
"Yes, sugar?" came the muffled reply. "What is it?"  
"You're not going to believe who I just saw. Is Sonic there?"  
"Sorry, 'e's out in Robotropolis right now. What's wrong, Tails? Who'd ya see?"  
"Just get someone out here now. Hurry, Aunt Bunnie."  
"I'm on my way, sugar." The radio clicked off.  
  
The figure stomped down the trail, creating as much noise and commotion as   
possible. His breath came out in ragged gasps that could have been heard from quite some   
distance away.  
He stopped. *Something* was moving through the underbrush ahead, creating   
almost as much noise as he was. Something large and heavy.  
"Hello?" he coughed weakly.  
The something sounded quite heavier than anything humanoid could manage. He   
could hear large branches snapping in the distance, ordinary forest litter being trampled.   
The cougar growled and backed away, ready to fend off a large predator.  
Bunnie burst through the trees, and stopped dead in her tracks.  
The cougar relaxed. It had been her metal legs tearing through the forest that he   
had heard. Definitely heavier than a normal humanoid.  
"Cat!" She held a paw up to her mouth. "Oh mah stars!"  
Cat choose that moment to collapse, trying to suck breath into his lungs. Bunnie   
caught him easily with her robotic arm, but in a moment he struggled to his feet again.  
"Good to see you again," he gasped.  
"What 'appened to you?" she asked urgently. Tails flew in and landed behind her,   
eyes wide but saying nothing.  
"Better than roboticization. Please, I need to get to Knothole. Now."  
"But - but… we thought you were dead, or roboticized for shore! How'd you   
escape?"  
"No time!" he snapped. A thin trickle of blood fell from between his lips; he wiped   
it away. "There's something I have to tell the others."  
"Of course, sugar!" Bunnie hoisted Cat up, draping his arm around her metallic   
left shoulder. "Tails, go fly ahead and tell the others. Tell Bookshire to have a medical kit   
ready." Tails was off, and soon disappeared over the forest's canopy.  
Both Bunnie and Cat tried to move in opposite directions. Bunnie stopped him.   
"No, no, it's this way. Don'tcha remember where Knothole is?"  
Cat shook his head sadly.  
Bunnie looked closely at him, and saw an ugly series of incision marks under his   
scalp. "Oh mah stars… what have they done to you, sugar?"  
  
"Not again!" Bookshire groaned. For the second time in three days, a Freedom   
Fighter just barely holding onto life was being brought into Knothole. Minutes ago, Tails   
had torn into Bookshire's hut, waking Reynard. He had just shouted something about an   
injured person and blood, then had left just as quickly, off to find Sally.  
Bunnie's two metal legs carried her as fast as possible into Knothole and towards   
the infirmary. She held Cat's pliant form clutched limply between her organic and robotic   
arms; he had simply collapsed, unable to continue any further, two kilometers back. But   
he was still breathing, although raggedly.  
Blood now oozed openly from Cat's mouth. Occasionally, he coughed and hacked   
up a great deal more.  
Bookshire's mouth dropped as he recognized the face.  
"Booky, git over here! I think he's got internal bleeding!" Bunnie shouted, having   
breached the borders of panic.  
Sally dashed out of her hut. A hand flew to her mouth. "Oh my gosh!" Instantly,   
she was running across town right behind Bookshire. Together, the three of them carried   
Cat's prone body into the infirmary, and onto the bed next to Reynard.  
"How can it be?" Sally exploded. "He was roboticized over a year ago!"  
Bookshire ignored her. "You were right, Bunnie. I can tell that there's massive   
internal bleeding even without checking. His lungs have been punctured; he's coughing up   
blood. There's been a blunt trauma to the head. "  
"Can you save him?" Bunnie asked anxiously.  
Bookshire looked up. "I'm not even sure how he survived this long."  
Cat coughed once more, and groaned. He looked up, eyes unfocused and cloudy.   
"Princess? Is that you?"  
Bookshire gently laid his head back down on the cot. "Stay still."  
Sally took Cat's hand. He gripped it, and let his fingers brush across her small,   
regal palm. "It is you," he smiled.  
"Just relax, stay still, Cat," she said, repeating Bookshire. "You're home, now.   
You're in Knothole."  
"Warn you…" Cat coughed again. "Robotnik knows where the Southern Freedom   
Fighter group is hidden. He knows where their base is."  
Sally's eyes widened. "What?"  
"He knows where the Southern Freedom Fighter group is camped," Cat repeated.   
"He's preparing to attack…" he trailed off.  
Bookshire pounded the vitals monitors, and began furiously flipping through a   
medical textbook. Sally had never seen him resort to that before.  
"He'll kill them all. Today," Cat sputtered. "Had to break free. Warn you."  
Bookshire took Bunnie aside. "Is 'e going to be okay?" Bunnie asked anxiously.  
Bookshire's eyes glistened. He only shook his head.  
Bunnie gasped. "No… not after returning, after all this time! Not this close!"  
Bookshire looked back at Cat. "I can't *do* anything about it."  
"No!"  
"Is Lupe still in Knothole, or has she left already?" Bookshire asked quietly.  
"Ah think she's still here…"  
"Go get her. Run. This'll be her last chance."  
  
The infirmary door flew open, slamming against the wall opposite the hinges.   
Lupe ran in, ignoring it. Her gaze fell on Reynard, again laying unconscious on the   
infirmary's first bed. She saw the others, Sally and Bookshire, bent over another table,   
with another body on it. The vitals monitor was giving off a slow, irregular beat.  
Sally looked up upon Lupe's entrance. Her face was crestfallen. She stood aside,   
letting Lupe get a good look at the cougar on the table.  
Lupe didn't say anything. She only walked slowly forward, taking each step   
carefully as if afraid that coming too close would shatter this reality and reveal it as a   
dream.  
There was no sound other than Cat's soft, erratic breathing, and the irregular beat   
of the vitals monitor.  
This wasn't the Cat she remembered. His arm was twisted. The once-rich, brown   
fur was tousled, and stained with age and blood. The muscles had shriveled since the last   
time she had seen him, they had grown weaker and frail. His arm was twisted. A   
patchwork of scars twisted their way across his forehead and skull, obviously the result of   
a bizarre surgical procedure.  
Lupe's upper lip curled backward. "What have they done to you?" she whispered   
under her breath. Her hand ran brushed tenderly across Cat's unmoving face.  
Cat opened his eyes again, slowly, fighting for every movement, every twitch. His   
corneas were white and milky… Lupe doubted that he could see anything at all.  
"Sally?" he asked hopefully, feeling the soft touch.  
"No. It's Lupe."  
Cat blinked for a moment, and for a terrifying instant Lupe thought that Cat hadn't   
recognized that name. "I must be hallucinating," Cat said, voice ragged. "I thought I was   
in Knothole."  
"You are."  
"Of course… the Freedom Fighters have joined together. That's why I'm here…   
to warn you." Cat tried to give a little shrug, but his shoulders only twitched. "Robotnik   
must've messed up my memory worse than I thought."  
"He's the one who did this to you?" Lupe asked, brushing her fingers across the   
scars on Cat's head.  
"Know anyone else that megalomaniacal?"  
Lupe caught herself trembling. This was incredibly frustrating… they hadn't seen   
each other in over a decade, and Cat seemed to want to just make small talk. He seemed   
uncertain. Cat had never been uncertain. He seemed so… changed… like he didn't want   
to talk because he was afraid of something.  
"You've changed over the decade," Lupe said softly.  
"It's been that long?" Cat smiled. "I can remember you like I can yesterday…"  
"Tell me what you remember," Lupe asked hopefully.  
Cat's eyes rolled back, and he didn't answer. Couldn't answer. The muscles in his   
face relaxed as he collapsed back into unconsciousness. His head fell limp.  
Lupe found herself unable to do anything but sit there and hold Cat's hand until the   
end came.  
  
Epos Nix lounged back in his army cot, listening to the radio unit he had set up   
softly play the conversation to him. His ears remained perked, listening for any salient   
information.  
"It can't be," Bunnie's voice said, dispirited. It was distorted by the static crackle   
of the radio. "'e came all this way… 'e came so close… Ah've never seen anything so   
anticlimactic before."  
There was the rustling of a sheet of cloth, perhaps a blanket, in the background.   
Nix had detected Lupe's footsteps several minutes ago; she had already left the infirmary,   
and left quickly, as if unable to contain herself after the sound of the vitals monitor had   
become a continuous tone. Sally, Bunnie, and Bookshire were alone in the room.   
Reynard was there, too, but had remained unconscious through the entire ordeal.  
"It just ain't right," Bunnie repeated herself for the twelfth time.  
A small desktop computer, set up in one corner of Nix's small tent, made a small   
beeping noise. Nix stirred a small, steaming cup of a caffeinated brown beverage. A   
small, white paper packet lay discarded nearby. It was labeled "FOLGER'S INSTANT   
COFFEE".  
"Death is never *right*," Bookshire mumbled. "We all know what you mean,   
though. To think for a year that he's dead, or worse, roboticized, then to learn that he's   
alive again, only to have him die moments later… it's all too much."  
"Poor Lupe…" Sally's voice said. She sighed. "This is our fault. This is *my*   
fault. I should've checked. I should've made sure…" she broke off with a groan.  
Nix's computer beeped again. It was doing its job. Just a few more seconds…  
Sally's feet hit the ground. Nix guessed that until then, she had been sitting.   
Without any video feed from his bug, it was impossible to tell. "The Southern Freedom   
Fighters," she said suddenly. "Cat said that Robotnik knew where the Southern Freedom   
Fighters are."  
Nix rolled his eyes. "Impressive wit, Princess," he mumbled dryly.  
"Do you know when Sonic's supposed to be back from Robotropolis?" Sally   
asked.  
"'E and Rotor were jus' out makin' a supply run. 'E should be back in a couple   
minutes," Bunnie answered.  
"Good. We'll need him to take us down to the Southern group's base. We need to   
evacuate them before Robotnik gets there."  
Epos Nix smirked to himself.  
"We have to run out and get everyone who received an Uzi ready to go. We might   
need to defend them while they evacuate."  
"Ah'll git right on it, Sally-girl."  
"So will I. I wish we could've prevented Cat's death, but all the same, I won't let   
him die in vain."  
A door opened and shut, and there was silence in the infirmary. The computer   
beeped one last time. Nix leaned over and switched the radio unit off.  
Grunting as he got up, Nix shuffled around in his cluttered tent until he reached the   
desktop computer. Crouching, he grabbed the keyboard and looked at the monitor.  
"TRIANGULATION SUCCESSFUL. RADIO SIGNAL POINT OF ORIGIN   
HAS BEEN TRACED. COORDINATES TO FOLLOW:"  
Below that, the screen printed out a series of precise latitude and longitude digits.   
Nix hit a button, and watched as the data printed out onto a hard-copy. He had gotten his   
bug inside Knothole, and used it and a triangulation algorithm to ascertain Knothole's   
exact location. The sheet of numbers in his hand would tell any cartographer where the   
Freedom Fighters' village was.  
Nix felt his cheeks split upwards in a wide grin. Now, all he had to do would be to   
find the highest bidder, and he could stand to make an incredible profit on this piece of   
information.  
It was very obvious who that highest bidder would be.  
  
Sally charged up to Epos Nix's tent, and heard a voice inside. "Now, how shall we   
conduct this bargain? I'm afraid this one's going to be quite expensive," Nix was saying.  
Bunnie's metal legs clomped through the grass behind her. Again, they gave away   
the Freedom Fighters.  
"Sorry, I'm going to have to call you back," Nix said, and switched something off.   
He emerged from his tent.  
"Princess? I'm afraid I wasn't expecting you."  
"Who was that?" Sonic asked. After returning from Robotropolis, Sonic had been   
quickly filled in on what had happened. He seemed disappointed that he had missed Cat's   
return, and was determined to make up for it by providing extra-fast transportation for the   
other Freedom Fighters.  
"A village up in the northern mountains. A collection of survivors of the coup,   
actually; their power generator blew, and I'm the only person with a spare." He eyed the   
three rebels. "So what do I owe the pleasure of this visit? An opportunity to make more   
money, perhaps?"  
"Perhaps," Sally said. "We think that Robotnik might send an assault force to   
annihilate some friends of ours. Would you have any weapons more powerful than the   
Uzi that you'd be willing to sell?"  
"Several, but they're not cheap. Wait here." Nix vanished behind the flap of his   
tent, and when he re-emerged, was carrying another large crate. He dropped it   
unceremoniously on the ground.  
Sally eyed the crate curiously. It had several symbols that she had never seen   
before painted onto the sides. One looked like a box, maybe a flag, with white and red   
stripes along most of it, and a blue-and-white-speckled smaller box in the upper left-hand   
corner. The other was a circle with a star in it.  
The end of the crate was marked with several words: "UNITED STATES   
ARMED FORCES". Sally raised an eyebrow.  
"'United States'? What's that?"  
Nix looked at her critically, and mimicked her expression by raising a single   
eyebrow. Otherwise, he didn't answer.  
He tore open the crate, revealing several long, black weapons of almost the same   
design as the Uzi he had already sold to the Freedom Fighters. These weapons were   
sleeker, though, longer, long enough to be a rifle.  
"This is what's called an AK-47 assault rifle. Very similar to the Uzi, and operates   
on the same basic principles. These guns, though, pack more of a whallop per bullet, and   
will be able to punch through armor a little cleaner. They're also a lot more accurate at   
long ranges; something you'll want if you have to fend off a distant assault force." Nix   
reached further into the crate, and pulled out a thinner, simpler looking gun. The barrel   
was *long*. "This is a 30.06 sniper rifle. Very effective at long ranges, though absolutely   
worthless at medium to close range. Of all the weapons you've seen so far, this one's   
bullet is the most powerful." He grinned as he stared at it. "It can tear a person's head   
right off their shoulders."  
"Charming," Sonic said dryly.  
"These are all fresh imports - I only got my hands on them this morning. I'll sell   
these at two and a half thousand coins per weapon. No haggling this time."  
"We'll consider them. We might be going up against some heavier armor. Do you   
have anything explosive?" Sally asked.  
"Hmmmmm. You mean like a missile or rocket launcher?"  
"Perhaps. What've you got?"  
"Absolutely nothing, I'm afraid. You're out of luck there." Nix was sounded so   
confident that Sally was sure that he was lying. She didn't press the issue.  
"We'll buy six of those… aahkay 47s." Sally had sound out the word again.  
Nix wore an amused smile. "No, no, it's an acronym. Spelled exactly the way it   
sounds. AK-47."  
"Whatever. We'll take them."  
"What about payment?" Nix asked carefully. He sighed. "Since you're in a hurry,   
I'm assuming that you'll want to take these on credit again."  
"Please."  
"You've got yourself a deal, Princess." Within moments, Nix had grabbed another   
pair of crates from his cluttered tent. Each one held three AK-47s, and several pairs of   
clips. "This gun operates essentially the same way that that the Uzi does - three setting   
safety, banana-clip ammunition… you shouldn't have any trouble using it."  
"Thank you, Epos."  
Sonic took Sally by the arm. "C'mon, Sal, let's jam back to Knothole."  
Bunnie hoisted the two crates easily with her metal arm, then latched herself onto   
Sonic's back. Nix heard a sound like a motor revving, and a blue blur tore through the   
woods. All three Freedom Fighters were gone.  
Nix cupped a hand to his cheek. "I'll expect payment by midnight tomorrow!" he   
called after them. His voice was drowned out by a sonic boom.  
  
Bunnie threw the crates into the stolen hover unit. The contents rattled violently.   
She didn't care.  
"What're those?" Bookshire asked.  
"Ah'll explain when we're in the air, sugar. Just git ready to go."  
Sally quickly surveyed the Freedom Fighters gathered outside the hover unit. It   
was going to be an even tighter squeeze than last time, and for a longer trip, too. Besides   
herself, Bookshire, Bunnie, and Sonic, most of the others who had originally been given   
the Uzis were there as well: Rotor, Antoine, Geoff, Neophyte, and Anacharis were all   
waiting impatiently. Reynard was gone, of course, as was Canus. Canus had left for the   
Wolf Pack's camp in the Great Unknown hours ago.  
"Are we ready yet?" Sonic asked, tapping his foot. He would occasionally glance   
at a nonexistent wristwatch.  
"Just about," Sally said. "How're the fuel levels, Booky?"  
"Doing fine. We're ready to go." His head poked out of the hover unit's doorway,   
and got a good look at the Freedom Fighters gathered outside. He smiled wickedly.   
"Everybody pile in!"  
"This is gonna be fun," Neophyte grumbled, jumping heavily into the back array of   
seats. Antoine followed her in, pointedly taking a deep breath first. The others reluctantly   
filled up the empty seats until there were no more. Bunnie had to squat on the floor.  
Sally waited, trying to be the last one in. The air inside was *already* hot and   
musty. "Hell's bells," she cursed.  
Sonic rolled his eyes from inside. "Have to make sacrifices for freedom, right,   
Sal?"  
Sally heard footsteps squelch in the mud behind her. She turned, grateful for the   
distraction. Lupe was standing there, Uzi hanging by her side.  
"Room for one more?" she asked quietly. Her eyes were stained red with emotion,   
but her expression was otherwise stoic, and characteristically unreadable.  
Sally frowned, and felt her gaze slip involuntarily to the door of the infirmary.   
Cat's corpse lay just beyond that wall, wide-open still staring at the ceiling. Only two   
hours had come and gone since his passing.  
Lupe followed her gaze, and interrupted her before she could say anything. "I   
*am* coming, Princess." Her voice had an odd ring of finality.  
Sally nodded, and let Lupe climb into back of the hover unit. Sally followed her   
in, and shut the door behind her.  
The hover unit's engines roared, and Knothole was left far behind.  
  
The Doomsday tower was hauntingly silent. Snively's footsteps echoed up and   
down the deserted corridors, crunching on pieces of metal debris. Every once in a while,   
he kicked a larger chunk of rubble, like a SWATbot's head, a few feet, treasuring the   
empty noises it made.  
Once, he had been frightened by solitude. That had been before the coup… before   
Julian Kintobor had become Robotnik. Now, Snively enjoyed every moment of it he could   
find, for surely loneliness or even death eternal were better than spending a single minute   
with his uncle. The dark bruise welling up on his forehead had not faded in the past two   
days, and still occasionally shot a spike of pain through Snively's consciousness.  
He brushed aside the pieces of robotic wreckage absently. Snively had never sent   
the worker bots through the Doomsday tower to clean it since the Freedom Fighters' raid.   
He had left the trash littered on the ground. Occasionally, once or twice every day, he   
would come up here, and mull on what the Freedom Fighters had obviously discovered.  
Home.  
Snively stopped as he approached the prone body of a fallen SWATbot. This one   
had fallen after only one or two of the bullets had hit it, but they had hit it were it counted.   
The red-tinted helmet visor had been smashed to pieces. A ragged hole, torn like a fist   
through a sheet of paper, covered most of its chest.  
Snively bent down and reached into the SWATbot's helmet, ignoring the painful   
pinpricks and cuts the shards of glass gave him. He extracted a single lead pellet, a bullet.   
It had been fired from the barrel of the Freedom Fighters' Uzis. It was crumpled, nearly   
shorn in half from the strength of the impact with the robot's body. But it was still   
recognizable.  
This bullet had never been manufactured on Mobius, Snively knew. He was   
holding a piece of refined ore that had come from the surface of a place he hadn't seen in   
over two-and-a-half decades. A place that, until two days ago, he had given up all hope of   
ever seeing again.  
He would do *anything* to get back there again. He would murder Robotnik   
himself if he thought he could get away with it. He would betray his future, betray his   
Uncle, betray whatever power he had in Robotropolis itself just to…  
"Snively..." a deep voice intoned testily.  
Snively jumped and gave a high-pitched squeal. He turned and saw his uncle   
Robotnik's frowning face on a nearby computer monitor. For an instant, Snively thought   
that if his uncle could catch him off guard like that, he might have been able to read   
Snively's mind, too. If Robotnik had heard his thoughts just a moment ago, it surely   
would've been a quick execution.  
"Y-Yes, sir?" he wheezed. Snively was unconsciously tracking the pace of his   
heart beats. The rate was far too fast to be healthy.  
Despite his surliness just a moment ago, Snively could tell that his uncle was   
fighting to suppress a smile.  
"I have a task for you, Snively," Robotnik said, and the grin he had been struggling   
to keep down broke out across his face. His large, square teeth gleamed in the artificial   
light. This was atypical behavior, to say the least. Snively hid his confusion.  
"Of course, sir."  
The last time he had seen Robotnik, he had been heading out to the southern   
reaches of the wilderness surrounding Robotropolis, with an armada of airships at his side.   
Doomsday Pod #2 was with him as well. Robotnik had said something about a Southern   
encampment of rebels.  
"I'm returning to Robotropolis in my command ship right now. I've still got a task   
force of warships and foot soldiers headed towards the hidey-hole of the Southern   
Freedom Fighters." So that was it, the fat man had somehow managed to find the location   
of the Southern group. Those Freedom Fighters had bothered Robotnik's shipping   
operations in the past, but they certainly weren't as much a thorn in the obese bastard's   
side as the hedgehog and Knothole Freedom Fighters had been.  
"Yes, sir. I hope the battle goes well, sir."  
"So do I, Snively. That's why I called you. I've giving you the command of the   
task force."  
Snively gasped. "M-Me? Sir?"  
"Yes, you, Snively."  
"But, sir! They're Freedom Fighters! Usually, you attack them yourself, sir!"   
Robotnik insisted on leading every military strike against the Freedom Fighters himself.   
Now he was handing over the command of a large strike force, posed to eliminate a major   
threat, to his lackey! For a moment, Snively wondered if the Robotnik he was talking to   
was real, or a replicant. Than he shook his head.  
"There are more important matters Snively. I'm making a grab for Knothole."   
Robotnik's metal hand made a fist.  
"But -"  
"No more buts, Snively! You will take command of the assault force, and you will   
bring me their heads on a pike! There are more momentous things afoot today!"  
Robotnik's image vanished.  
Snively gulped. His world was coming apart around him. He made a mad dash for   
the Doomsday communication hub, and tripped over the wreckage of a SWATbot.  
  
Bookshire set the stolen hover unit down just outside the perimeter of the   
Southern Freedom Fighters' town. It could have hardly been called a town, Sally   
reflected. The closest word was hidey-hole. Shanty village, perhaps. Whatever she called   
it, it wasn't pretty.  
Five days ago, Lupe had managed to send messages out to the Southern and   
Eastern groups, asking them to join a network dedicated to fighting Robotnik. Both   
groups had instantly agreed, via messages sent by carrier pigeon.  
Sally had decided early that they couldn't risk trying to communicate by radio. It   
would be all too easy for their messages to be intercepted in Robotropolis. The only way   
they had managed to communicate was by short, hand-written notes that Uncle Chuck's   
trained carrier birds had to carry back and forth. Whatever messages had been sent were   
crude, and oft-times difficult to understand. Games like that had been playing for several   
days now. Only the Wolf Pack and Knothole resistances had actually seen each other   
face-to-face so far.  
Sally had never seen the Southern group's base before, and had never heard it   
described in any of their messages, either. It was a crowded collection of six to several   
ramshackle huts clustered together in a small clearing. Whoever had built them didn't   
know too much about wilderness survival; the walls and roofs were littered with half-  
repaired holes. Structural defects abounded.  
At least there won't be much to evacuate, Sally thought to herself, feeling a touch   
of almost professional pride in the fact that Knothole looked so much better.  
The hover unit landed with a slight *thump*, and Sally opened the doors without   
hesitation. A blast of cool air hit her face, letting the sweltering atmosphere of the hover   
unit slowly leak out. She heard Sonic breathe a sigh of relief behind her.  
She looked around at the huts. There was no sign of life. Had they gone already?  
The barrel of a laser rifle was leveled at the interior of the hover unit, from point   
blank range. The end of the barrel was actually inside the airship. Sally forced a sharp   
intake of air into her lungs; she hadn't seen anyone approach. Without hesitation,   
Neophyte snapped her Uzi into the air, and leveled it at the source. Her trigger finger   
twitched, ready to pull.  
Gradually, the rifle relaxed. "Princess?" someone asked. A rhino stepped into the   
light. "What're you doing here? And in one of Robotnik's airships?" Neo slowly lowered   
her own weapon.  
Sally had to let out a breath she just then realized she was holding. "You're from   
the Southern Freedom Fighters?"  
The rhino nodded. He had a sash strapped around his left shoulder. Sally stared at   
it, and said, "You're Apollo, aren't you?"  
"That's right. Leader of the Southern resistance. It's good to see you at last, but I   
wish you could have come at a better time."  
Sally hopped gingerly to the ground, and cautiously shook Apollo's hand. "Good   
to see you, at last, too. I'm sorry I didn't warn you about our arrival, but we have to tell   
you something. Robotnik's found you. He's coming."  
Apollo nodded gravely. "We already know. We detected his airship armada   
coming towards us half-an-hour ago. I thought you were a scout from them."  
Sally blinked. "You already know?" she asked, suddenly feeling worthless.  
"Yes. It pays sometimes to have some decent radar equipment. We just got it,   
too."  
"Oh. Can we help?"  
Apollo smiled. "Of course. We still need to get our people and equipment out of   
here safely; we've been working on a razor-thin margin so far. We could use all the spare   
hands we can get."  
Sonic practically fell out of the hover unit, gratefully sucking in the fresh air. He   
patted his Uzi. "You need to buy some extra time?" he grinned. "We can distract   
Robuttnik for ya!"  
Apollo eyed the Uzi carefully. "What kind of weapon is that?"  
"When will Robotnik's forces get here?" Sally asked.  
"Twenty minutes."  
"Then I'll have that long to show you." She motioned for the others to come out   
of the hover unit. "Everybody get that? We need to buy the Southern Freedom Fighters   
some time to clear out. Let's set up our first firing line over there…"  
  
"Estimated time of arrival in forty seconds, sir," the SWATbot droned.  
"Excellent!" Snively sat in Robotnik's unused throne in the Doomsday command   
center. He kicked against a nearby console, and spun the chair around, once. After   
getting over his initial shock, he had found that this kind of power felt… very good.  
"Full thrust! Charge all laser cannons!" he screamed, delighted.  
The green dots on Snively's radar screen got closer and closer to the single,   
motionless red dot. "Give me a visual," he demanded.  
A monitor blinked, and gave a camera view from one of the lead hover units.   
Snively saw a clearing in the trees approaching ahead… the Southern Freedom Fighters'   
base.  
He grinned, feeling uncomfortably like his uncle. Wasn't this how the fat fool   
acted whenever something was about to go his way? Oh, well… "Reduce altitude.   
Prepare to fire!"  
The trees slowly peeled back, and Snively saw the first of the huts he was charged   
with destroying. He saw the Mobians dashing around the huts, running into the trees. He   
saw…  
The grin dropped off his face. He saw Sonic, and the Princess, lined up with   
several of the other Knothole Freedom Fighters just before the huts. All of them were   
carrying some form of the bullet weapons that had trashed the Doomsday security forces.  
Impossibly, at this distance, he saw Sonic wink.  
Then there was a burst of gunfire, and the video feed turned to static. Snively   
hissed, and shouted an obscenity at fate. How had the hedgehog known?  
A crazy thought struck him. Now this was how his uncle acted when he got   
mad…  
Snively punched himself out.  
  
Hover unit after hover unit crashed to the ground. Flaming pieces of metal landed   
at Sonic's feet. He held an Uzi with one hand, and an AK-47 with the other, and was   
firing them both into the air at full automatic.  
Wave after wave of hover units fell without so much as a reaction from any of the   
others. They kept coming.  
  
Snively crawled to the base of the throne, wondering what had possessed him to   
hit himself.  
He had been trying to act like Robotnik. Whenever Robotnik got angry, he always   
used Snively as a scapegoat… that meant hitting. Snively hauled himself up to the throne,   
reminded once again why he hated his uncle.  
He saw over half the hover unit armada crash to the ground. Sluggish after the   
self-induced concussion, Snively's mind raced. "Scatter!" he ordered.  
The hover units dove, and headed in opposite directions. Through one of the   
remaining airship's cameras, he saw the Freedom Fighters cheer and shout. Not one of   
them had been knocked down, because Snively had never given the order to fire.  
Snively cursed himself, cursed his life, and cursed his stupidity. Then he brought   
up the military communications grid again, and issued another order. Hover units hadn't   
been the only thing Robotnik had originally included in his air force armada.  
"Bring Doomsday Test Pod #2 forward."  
  
Apollo cheered, letting the AK-47 rest at his side. It had only taken him a couple   
minutes to catch on to how to use the weapon. "That was incredible!" he hollered.  
Someone Sally didn't know, a member of the Southern group, dashed up to   
Apollo. He cast a quick, wary glance at the Princess, then turned back to Apollo. "We   
just got all the equipment out. We're moving it down the river to our secondary camp."  
"Very good," Apollo grinned. The other Freedom Fighter never heard him; he had   
already raced away. "I've got to hand it to you guys. Without that distraction, we   
would've only had enough time to save our people, and not our supplies. You just saved   
us a lot of time."  
"No prob," Sonic grinned, looking for all the world like he had done it himself,   
without help.  
"If you're all set to leave, we should get ready to go," Sally said. Antoine shrieked   
in the background. "It was good to help. Cat didn't die in vain."  
"Who?"  
"Never mind. You sure you're going to be all right?"  
"We'll be fine. You all go. I'll send a messenger bird to Knothole later tonight."  
"Oh mah stars!" Bunnie shouted suddenly, waving a metallic finger at the sky.   
"Sally-girl!"  
Sally's gaze followed Bunnie's finger skyward, until she saw the oblong metal   
skeleton. The gridwork of cold, solid metal beams and laser cannons coasted silently   
towards the Southern Freedom Fighters' encampment.  
"What in the holy Hells is that thing?"  
Sally looked at Apollo. "That's a half-finished Doomsday Test Pod!"  
Sonic, still holding both an Uzi and an AK-47, pointed both weapons upward and   
began firing. Yellow fire spewed forth from both gun barrels, and bullets flew high.  
Whatever bullets actually managed to hit the pod's framework impacted   
ineffectually, sending only one or two sparks away from the Test Pod. It never flinched or   
trembled. Sally would've bet that, knowing how strong a metal the Doomsday pods were   
made of, the bullets barely left anything more than a scratch.  
Sonic's Uzi clip clicked dry first, then the AK-47. He finally lowered the weapons.  
The Test Pod's laser cannon fired brilliant red wedge of fire at the ground,   
smashing the trees below it. Fire roared up from below. The Test Pod continued moving   
towards the encampment, dragging the fiery swath of destruction with it.  
"Get out of here!" Apollo shouted one last sentence at Sally, and then made a run   
for it. He and the Knothole Freedom Fighters sprinted for Bookshire's stolen hover unit,   
and piled inside. In an instant, they were off, and flying above the Doomsday pod.  
The fire consumed the clearing that the huts had been in. Sally near got to see   
them collapse; the pod had leveled them in the blink of an eye. It was as if they had never   
existed.  
"Such destruction…" Apollo mumbled.  
The Test Pod turned its attentions towards the stolen hover unit. Bookshire rolled   
the airship sharply to port just as a blast of laser fire seared through the air where they had   
been. He curved the hover unit around in a graceful arc, and fired engines at full blast   
towards the Great Forest.  
  
"Get them!" Snively shouted. "Get them!"  
Test Pod #2 fired again, and missed. The laser burst came just short of the hover   
unit's stern. Snively could see that the hover unit was outrunning the slow, unfinished   
engines of the Doomsday pod.  
A third laser burned through the air, missing by a wider margin. After a fourth and   
fifth blast, the hover unit had gone out of sight. Test Pod #2 ground to a halt, and   
hovered in the air.  
Snively screamed, and thumped his head down on the throne's arm rest. Robotnik   
was going to be very, *very* upset with him.  
Best to tell him from a distance. Like from across the city. Maybe not even today,   
maybe wait until tomorrow.  
Snively hated pain.  
  
The chilly night air blew into Knothole's only guest hut, a small, underused one-  
room affair. Lupe closed the window and cut the draft off.  
She stood there late into the night, facing out the window. In all that time her eyes   
never left the distant lights that flickered in the window of Bookshire Draftwood's hut and   
infirmary.  
Eventually even those lights turned off, leaving nothing but moonlit shadow and   
darkness, but Lupe's gaze never wandered. The only things she saw were her wounded   
companion, Reynard, and her dead fiancée, Cat.  
Then, eventually, she stopped seeing even them, and her thoughts became more   
and more abstract. She saw sorrow. Then she saw nothing but anger, and a burning   
desire for vengeance.  
Then she fell silently to her cot, and slept. She dreamt, of course, of Cat, but also   
saw Epos Nix's bullet weapons in her dreams, slaughtering her companions, almost like a   
nightmarish vision of things to come…  
  
***  
Day Six  
  
A cold, gray sky had blown in with the wind last night, and had remained until   
morning. It cast a gritty, disconsolate shadow across everything it touched, and even   
made the distance smog over Robotropolis seem more desolate than it ever had before.   
To match the sky, a chilly wind had been blowing all day, and now it fluttered across the   
meadow like a lost orphan child. An appropriate day for a burial.  
Sally had offered to let Lupe take the cadaver back to the Great Unknown, where   
the Wolf Pack's numerous burial sites lay. Lupe had refused to do so; when she looked at   
Sally after she had tentatively made the offer, she had the oddest expression Sally had ever   
seen.  
"No," she had said solemnly. "Knothole will be forever Cat's place."  
Only hours after returning from the demolished encampment last night, the   
Freedom Fighters had begun digging Cat's grave. Lupe had insisted that the burial be   
today, and despite her always-neutral tone, Sally got the impression that Lupe simply   
couldn't bear to think about Cat just lying there, untended, in Bookshire's infirmary.  
Now Cat lay just inside his shallow grave, eyes closed and arms crossed around his   
chest. Bookshire had cleaned the body this morning, wiping away the blood and dressing   
the cougar's numerous wounds. They were mostly gone, now, but here and there on Cat's   
body there were still visible the tell-tale signs of abuse. Some of the dried blood had been   
impossible to rinse away. There was no coffin, Knothole's builders lacked the time and   
raw materials to make one, and Cat's back rested limply against the dirt bottom of the   
grave.  
The Freedom Fighters were lined up in a double row around Cat. Even Apollo,   
who had not left Knothole since tagging along in the stolen hover unit, was there. Sonic   
was standing at the head of the grave, a shovel packed full of dirt in his hands.  
The last time Sally had seen Sonic shed a tear over anything was when his uncle   
had lost his will to Robotnik's roboticizer. That had been over a year ago. He looked like   
he was coming very close now, though.  
"That's three times I screwed up," Sonic said, aloud. "A year ago, I wasn't fast   
enough to save you. When I saw your empty prison cell, I thought for sure that you were   
dead, or worse. I was wrong. I didn't check. Instead, we let Robuttnik have you for over   
a year. He did *this* to you, while all I did was sit back and think that you were already   
dead."  
Sally noticed the 'I's' appearing often in Sonic's speech. He blamed himself. The   
downside of his egotism was when something went wrong, he often forgot that making   
mistakes was sometimes a group effort.  
"Then, yesterday, when you came back, I was gone. I should've been there, maybe   
to get you back to Knothole faster. Bookshire might have been able to do something if I'd   
been there. Instead, I was out in Robotropolis, raiding a decade-old chili dog vending   
machine." Sonic shook his head bitterly. "I sure got my priorities straight, huh?"  
"I don't know what to say, what to promise. I could just vow to avenge you, vow   
to kill Robuttnik. That's what I had planned to do, today. But… just looking down there,   
looking at your face, it all sounds so empty. Like killing Robotnik just won't have any   
meaning, not today." Sonic's gaze fell upon Cat's corpse. "And I guess it doesn't. Killing   
him can't undo this, can't bring back any of the dead."  
Sonic let the shovel's contents fall gently into the grave, wincing as the dirt hit   
Cat's unmoving chest. He thrust the shovel into a nearby pile of dirt, and stepped down.  
Sally stepped up the head of the grave, where Sonic had been, and grabbed the   
shovel's handle. For as long as Sally could remember, burials like this had been an Acorn   
family tradition, one that she had carried with her to Knothole. The deceased's grave was   
dug only by family and close friends, oft-times by hand. The following day, each of them   
would come to the grave, give their respects, and they would all fill the grave in together.  
The Princess glanced around the meadow. She had long since lost count of how   
many times she had been out here, how many shallow graves she had stood over, just like   
this one. Occasionally, they would find Mobians laying in the Robotropolis's scrap yards,   
victims of Robotnik's fury. Sally insisted that each and every body they recovered, no   
matter whether it was a Freedom Fighter, a civilian, or even a hated foe, receive a proper   
burial. Other times, Sally had stood outside the graves of people who had once been her   
closest friends and companions.  
Sally let her gaze wander freely, feeling it slip unconsciously towards the grave of   
the person who had been her childhood mentor, Julayla. Her body rested underneath that   
one mound of dirt as it had for the past half-decade, yet Sally could remember her as if she   
had just seen her yesterday. Her eyes drifted again, and came upon the symbolic graves   
she had laid out for her mother and father when she had been seven. She hadn't removed   
either of them, even when she had found out that her father still lived, trapped permanently   
within the Void.  
Her eyes fell back to the living still standing around Cat's open grave. She saw   
Sonic doing nothing but look at his feet. For the moment, the fight had been extinguished   
from even him; his eyes were as dead as Cat's.  
"I had a speech planned, too, but as I stand here I know I can't give it. It all seems   
so… worthless, now. Everything we've done."  
"I know in my heart that what we're doing here, what the Freedom Fighters exist   
for is right. I know that we can defeat Robotnik, if we try. I still hope we can… yet,   
now, I can't do anything but stand here and feel like a failure. No matter how well things   
go from now on, now matter how or when we succeed, nothing can bring back the dead.   
Even if we were to defeat Robotnik an hour from now, and restore the free wills of every   
Mobian on the planet, nothing we could do would bring people like Cat back. Nothing   
can help the dead."  
Sally couldn't take her eyes away from Cat's face, and the wounds that still marred   
his forehead. "Oh, Cat…"  
That was all she could manage. She tipped the shovel sideways, and watched as   
more dirt piled atop the corpse. Then she stood down.  
They all went up there, one by one, each giving little speeches, and pouring more   
dirt into Cat's grave. Sally stopped listening after Bunnie's tearful goodbye; she just   
couldn't take her attention away from the slowly filling grave.  
Lupe was the last one to stand before Cat's grave. She took the shovel, and stood   
there, just looking at the mound of dirt that concealed the sweetheart from her past.  
She stood there and waited, noting moving a muscle, not saying any words.   
Seconds turned to minutes. Lupe remained motionless, except for a single tear that slid   
down the scar on cheek.  
At last, she poured the last shovel-full of dirt onto the grave. Lupe stood there just   
as motionless as Cat, waiting in front of the grave long after the others had left.  
  
***  
Day Seven  
  
By the next day's morning, the cold gray clouds of the day before he parted,   
leaving only a smattering of feathery white clouds to block the sun's rays.  
Sally, Bunnie, Rotor, and Bookshire were alone in Knothole's small dining hall.   
Most of the others had either choked down Antoine's breakfast hours ago, or skipped it   
entirely. Lupe was there, too, but was staying out of their conversation. She was leaning   
against the wall, her expression the pinnacle of apathy.  
The topic of discussion had once again shifted to Cat.  
"We don't even know what Robotnik did to him. We don't even know how he   
survived," Bookshire said. He looked at Lupe warily, but she didn't give any sign that she   
had even heard him.  
"Yeah," Rotor added. He, too, glanced at Lupe. When he spoke again, it was in a   
quieter voice. "I thought for sure that iron-lips had turned him into just another worker   
bot."  
"No, he kept Cat alive and conscious, but we don't know for what." Sally sighed   
disparagingly. "It just doesn't seem like something Robotnik would do."  
"Well, 'e was suffering from some sort of memory impairment when Ah found   
him," Bunnie pointed out. "Poor thing couldn't even remember where Knothole was.   
Maybe ol' Robuttnik was usin' Cat for some kind of surgical experiment? Just to see what   
happens when he pokes this part of 'is brain?"  
"Gruesome," Rotor mumbled.  
Sally shook his head. "I don't think he would've kept Cat alive for over a year."   
She buried her face in her hands. This conversation was uncomfortable for her, to say the   
least.  
Bookshire rubbed his hand thoughtfully across his chin. "Maybe Robotnik did turn   
him into a worker bot, after all."  
"Say again, Booky?" Sally asked.  
Bookshire leaned across the table. "We know already that Robotnik has a   
functional deroboticizer close to his throne room. Say he did use it for some reason, to   
deroboticize Cat?"  
"It just don't make sense. Why would Robotnik do that?" Bunnie said.  
Bookshire shook his head, and shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe he thought that   
Cat might finally give away Knothole's location."  
"Now, we all know that Cat would never have done anything like that!" Sally   
exclaimed. "And Robotnik knows it, too."  
"Then we just don't know what Cat was doing alive. He… didn't survive long   
enough to tell us."  
"I think we can still find out, though." Sally ran a hand down the side of her face,   
an idea forming. "Can you hack into Robotropolis's mainframe computer, Booky? Track   
down anything about Cat?"  
"Not from Knothole. I'd need to find a direct terminal in Robotropolis to link to if   
I wanted to find anything at all."  
Sally nodded. "As grisly as it sounds, we need to find out how and why Cat   
survived, and why he was so injured when he came to Knothole."  
Bookshire nodded grimly. "If I take the stolen hover unit, I can be in Robotropolis   
in inside half-an-hour."  
Lupe suddenly spoke. The other Freedom Fighters jumped. "I'm coming with   
you, Bookshire."  
"Lupe!" Sally said, surprised. "I didn't think you could…"  
"Hear you?" Lupe finished for her. Both her expression and her tone were exactly   
as disinterested as they had been moments ago. "I'm a wolf, Princess, an offshoot of basic   
canine genealogy. My hearing's sharp, even for my species." Her eyes drifted to   
Bookshire. "I'll be ready to leave in five minutes."  
Lupe left.  
  
A fresh bruise had replaced the old one on Snively's forehead. The two practically   
overlapped each other.  
He rubbed them tenderly, and grumbled. At least there had been no broken bones,   
this time. Snively had no idea why, though… the obese bastard had only given him a few   
heavy-handed slaps after hearing the news about the Southern Freedom Fighters, and had   
left him alone, disappearing to one of his many hidey-holes in Robotropolis. Snively   
hadn't heard from him since.  
And Snively had actually been looking forward to spending a few quiet days with   
the medical robots. He had been expecting a thrashing.  
Maybe, Snively mused, just maybe, Robotnik was getting soft in his old age.   
Maybe he no longer saw a point to beating his only nephew.  
Snively shook his head, and was struck by an altogether more terrifying thought.  
Maybe losing the Southern Freedom Fighters had been the straw that had broken   
the camel's back. Maybe Robotnik was finally preparing to do away with Snively.  
A single laser blast to the head, point blank, and Sniv's little old brains would go   
scattered across the floor…  
Snively shook his head again, more violently. That did it. He had to find out why   
the stupid bastard had been acting so strangely over the past few days.  
"Computer!" he snapped. "Give me a report of everything that Ivo Robotnik has   
been doing over the past week! Now!"  
  
With a burst from the ion thruster jets, Bookshire's hover unit took to the air, and   
was quickly out of sight. Sally waited until the whine of the engines was no longer   
discernible through the forest.  
Antoine was leaning against the infirmary walls. "And where are they to be   
going?" he asked suspiciously.  
"Robotropolis. Bookshire thinks he can get some information off of Robotnik's   
database."  
Antoine grumbled something.  
"What did you say?"  
"Eh… forgive me, my Prinzess," Antoine fumbled. "I was making ze comment   
about Robotnik, and Cat."  
"What about them, Antoine?" Sally asked innocently.  
"I did not want to be saying anyzing earlier, but zis whole business, it, uh, makes   
ze fur on my hackles raise. It is not seeming right?"  
Sally began moving back towards Knothole's dining hall, Antoine in tow. "None   
of us are comfortable with Cat's death," she said softly. "It's something we all have to deal   
with, by ourselves."  
"Eh?" Antoine looked surprised. "No, no, no, zat was not what I was talking   
about."  
"Then what?"  
"I'm am talking about zee perfect timing of zis whole affair. Cat, he went missing   
over a year ago, n'est pas? We all knew he was as good as roboticized."  
Sally nodded sadly. "Unfortunately, we were all wrong. And it cost Cat his life."  
"Think about zis, my Prinzess. We had just found-ed ze Wolf Pack Freedom   
Fighters five days ago when Cat first came here."  
Sally saw where Antoine was going. She hated it already. "Yes…"  
"And only two days had pass-ed since we learn-ed zat Lupe knew Cat from before   
ze war. I am just saying zat zis is all very convenient timing. Cat shows up, running out   
of ze woods just days after all of zis."  
Sally didn't want to think about any of this. "Are you saying that there's a   
conspiracy behind Cat's return to Knothole."  
"I am not to be saying anything, my Prinzess. Just suggesting."  
Sally frowned. Every cell in her body, every fiber of her being, wanted to scream   
at Antoine that he was *wrong*. Cat had been a good Freedom Fighter, damn it. He had   
sacrificed himself once to save her once, and then sacrificed himself again to save the   
Southern Freedom Fighters.  
Yet… at the same time, Antoine had actually raised a valid point. Which was rare   
for him.  
"I'll think about it, Antoine," she said. Ant nodded proudly. Sally slipped through   
the doorway into the dining hall, and shut it before Antoine could follow her.  
Apollo was in the dining hall, sitting alone with a single scrap of paper. He looked   
up on Sally's entrance. "Heya, Princess."  
She nodded curtly, mind still focused on Antoine. "Any news from your Freedom   
Fighters?" she asked. Apollo had grown increasingly harried over the past few days; no   
news had come from the south. She could tell that he was fretting about them, worrying   
whether the Doomsday pod had caught them or not. She was starting to grow concerned,   
as well.  
Apollo grinned, and held up the note long enough for Sally to see several lines of   
scrawled writing on it. "Fresh from the messenger bird. They've managed to finish setting   
up a couple of ramshackle huts and shacks at our secondary encampment site. Thank god   
I insisted we work out those evacuation plans in advance, huh?"  
Sally nodded, feeling guilty. Knothole had no such evacuation plans… as Bunnie   
had put it one time, if Robotnik found Knothole, their only plans were to run, and run fast.   
"Good foresight, Apollo," she complimented.  
"Still, we wouldn't have made it out if it weren't for you and that radar equipment,"   
Apollo said. "We owe you Knothole Freedom Fighters one."  
Sally smiled. "That radar equipment… I wanted to ask you about that earlier. Did   
you scavenge it from Robotnik's scrap heaps, or did you actually break into a tech center   
and steal it?"  
Apollo copied her smile, nodding. "Nothing quite so simple. We had to pay quite   
dearly to get our hands on it."  
"Oh? How?"  
"Some merchant traveling through town sold us it a couple months ago. In fact,   
he practically insisted that we buy it. Said we would need it really soon." Apollo grunted   
to himself. "I guess he was right, too."  
"Merchant…" the word rolled off Sally's tongue, and froze there.  
"Yeah," Apollo confirmed. He frowned, as if trying to recall something concealed   
deep in his memory. "I think he said his name was Epos Nix."  
  
Bookshire's stolen hover unit flew straight through Robotropolis's city limits; the   
airship had been stolen in secret, and quite recently, and Robotnik's defenses hadn't been   
programmed to recognize it as an enemy aircraft. The traffic computers saw just another   
patrol unit moving through the city. Still, Bookshire breathed an audible sigh of relief as   
he passed the city's anti-air defenses unscathed.  
Lupe silently sat in the chair next to him. Bookshire got the impression that she   
was smoldering.  
Bookshire easily set the hover unit down to a smooth landing on the outside ledge   
of what had once been King Acorn's majestic castle. Robotnik had converted it to an   
ugly, metal egg-shaped building that served as the central building of nightmarish   
Robotropolis. The Doomsday tower loomed menacingly in the distance.  
"We don't even need to get out of the damn ship," Bookshire said. He tapped a   
few buttons on the hover unit's computer console, and a small prod unfolded from the   
exterior of the parked airship. It was an electronic jack. With another quick wrist   
movement, Bookshire guided it into a nearby outlet.  
The computer gave a single beep, and a menu unfolded on the monitor under   
Bookshire's palm. He moved his hand out of the way, showing the monitor to Lupe.  
"Bingo. Instant network access." He sighed happily, and looked at his wolf   
passenger. "So much better than when I was a kid."  
"It says it needs a password," Lupe read.  
"Right. Computer," he addressed the console in front of him. "Activate   
cryptosmasher software, and get me through that firewall."  
The screen changed displays several times, and all of them were incomprehensible   
to Lupe. She saw several numbers ticking down. Finally the screen blinked, and revealed   
Robotropolis's mainframe computer.  
"Very, very good," Bookshire grinned. With his bad leg, he had never managed to   
get away from Knothole much. When he did, however, he was always determined to   
enjoy it as much as possible. He could see why Sonic enjoyed outwitting his arch-nemesis   
so much… it was just plain fun. "I want you to access prisoner records. Give me all files   
about a Freedom Fighter named Cat."  
"ACCESS TO THAT INFORMATION IS RESTRICTED," the monitor bluntly   
informed him. "FORTY-CHARACTER LOGON KEY REQUIRED FOR ACCESS."  
"Activate cryptosmasher software."  
Another set of ticking numbers and incomprehensible screens flashed by.   
"ACCESS GRANTED."  
"This is too easy," Bookshire cooed. "Display the records."  
Lupe could only watch as Bookshire's eyes quickly scanned through several   
screens worth of file names and hexadecimal digits. Finally, his eyes lighted upon a single   
file, and he opened it.  
"PRISONER #4325041," the monitor reported back silently. "PRISONER   
CAPTURED 3/21/35. THE PRISONER DID NOT RESPOND TO INTERROGATION.   
ROBOTICIZED BY ORDER OF ROBOTNIK 3/22/35."  
Lupe looked at Bookshire, eyes wide.  
Bookshire frowned. "So he was roboticized, and then later deroboticized. I was   
right. Continue, computer."  
"WORKER BOT #4325041 ASSIGNED TO SWATBOT MANUFACTORING   
DIVISION, PLANT #2 3/22/35. RELEASED FROM ASSIGNMENT BY ORDER OF   
ROBOTNIK 7/15/36."  
Bookshire arched an eyebrow. "The fifteenth? That was four days ago… two   
days before he found us." He turned to Lupe.  
Lupe looked back at him, expression characteristically unreadable. Her gaze   
turned back to the egg-shaped castle outside. Lupe's eyes had acquired a hard, murderous   
glint.  
"Give me more information, computer. Why was Cat released from his assignment   
on the fifteenth?"  
"ACCESS TO THAT INFORMATION IS RESTRICTED, BY ORDER OF   
ROBOTNIK. ENCRYPTION KEY REQUIRED FOR ACCESS."  
Bookshire muttered a quiet curse. "Activate cryptosmasher software."  
Another set of numbers and illegible screens. They flashed for several moments   
before finally quitting.  
Bookshire's curled fist slammed against his console. "Damn it. I can't   
cryptosmash that lock."  
Lupe muttered several choice words that made Bookshire blush. He glanced up.   
"*That* was unnecessary."  
"So is roboticization, but that never stopped Robotnik."  
"I guess not." Bookshire felt his hand make a fist again. "Damn it, we have to find   
a way to break through this lock!"  
  
Snively was jarred out of his contemplative daze by the droning of the intruder   
alarm system. He gave a little squeak, and almost fell out of his chair. His arms flailed   
and scrambled to keep balance.  
He had gotten as far as to just outside the surveillance tape records when he   
stopped. Surely, any attempt by him to hack into the tapes would be recorded. He would   
be caught. Robotnik would surely have him executed.  
He had just left his computer screen there, unwilling to go any further. He had   
been caught between his desire to know what had held Robotnik so enraptured over the   
past several days, and his self-preservation instinct. He hadn't known what to do.  
"Report!" he barked.  
A SWATbot appeared on the screen. "An intruder, flying a stolen hover unit,   
attempted to hack through Robotropolis security, sir. A failed attempt at password   
cracking triggered a silent alarm."  
Snively rubbed his bird-like chin, and wished again that he could just grow a beard,   
or at least some stubble. He had never shaved a day in his life; had never needed to.   
"What section did they attempt to access?" he demanded.  
"Records on a Freedom Fighter, sir. A 'Cat'. Those records are partially   
contained in Robotnik's secure personal files."  
Snively nodded. Robotnik's personal files were exactly the kind of software he   
was debating whether or not to hack through. Perhaps…  
"Shall I cut off their connection and dispatch the closest hover units?"  
"Uh, no, soldier. Go about your normal business. I'll take care of those fetid   
Freedom Fighters."  
The SWATbot nodded, never questioning the orders it received. Its face vanished   
from the comm channel.  
Oh, yes, this was too perfect. Snively would let the Freedom Fighters into   
Robotropolis's mainframe, and make it look like *they* were the ones doing the hacking,   
not he. They would be his key into Robotnik's files… while they did the hacking, he   
would be there in the background, taking what he needed and leaving. His uncle, when he   
checked the logs, would think it was the Freedom Fighters hacking, and not stupid,   
worthless Snively…  
He would find out what Robotnik was up to, after all. Snively punched clear the   
firewall protecting Robotnik's personal files, and let the Freedom Fighters in.  
  
Bookshire blinked. "ACCESS GRANTED," the monitor beeped at him.  
Lupe glanced sharply in his direction. "I thought you said you couldn't   
cryptosmash the lock."  
"I couldn't. Something happened to the firewall, from the inside." Bookshire   
tapped a few buttons, and the monitor layout changed. "It's like somebody decided to let   
us in."  
The fur on Lupe's arms rippled, raising straight up. "I don't like this."  
"Neither do I. But we're inside." Bookshire looked at Lupe. "Keep an eye out for   
approaching hover units, huh? This feels too much like a trap."  
"I've been doing that ever since you landed us here."  
"Good." Bookshire turned his attentions to the computer. "So, computer, tell us   
then, what happened to Cat?"  
"BY ORDER OF ROBOTNIK, WORKER BOT #4325041 WAS BROUGHT TO FACILITY R12, AND THEN  
RELEASED."  
"What's facility R12?" Bookshire queried.  
"UNSPECIFIED."  
Lupe held up her paw for Bookshire to stop. "Computer, what do you mean Cat   
was released after being brought to this facility."  
"THE WORKER BOT WAS RELEASED TO ITS NORMAL DUTIES 7/16/36."  
Bookshire and Lupe exchanged a glance. "But something went wrong, and the   
worker bot escaped, correct?"  
"NO."  
"Then what happened to him?" Bookshire asked, exasperated.  
"AS OF THIS MINUTE, WORKER BOT #4325041 IS STILL WORKING THE   
ASSEMBLY LINE AT SWATBOT FACTORY #2."  
  
Snively was working with a similarly snobby computer. He leaned his frail body   
back in the chair, and buried his head in his hands.  
"So where is Robotnik right now?" he asked it.  
"DOCTOR ROBOTNIK IS CURRENTLY IN HIS THRONE ROOM."  
"And what's he doing?"  
"ENGAGING IN LONG-RANGE COMMUNICATION."  
"With whom, might I ask?"  
"A HUMAN WHO REFERS TO HIMSELF AS 'EPOS NIX'"  
"Nix?" Snively massaged his bruises. The name meant nothing to him. But the   
fact that this Nix was a human did… could he be from Earth? Could this Nix be the link   
he was seeking? "Tell me, computer, would it be possible for me to listen in on   
Robotnik's communication?"  
"YES, SIR."  
"Without being seen or detected?"  
"YES, SIR."  
"Then do it. Patch me in to Robotnik's channel. I want to listen."  
"ONE MOMENT, SIR."  
Snively hand moved down his forehead, from his bruises to his needle-thin nose.   
He scratched it absently. A thought struck him. "The Freedom Fighters I allowed   
entrance?" he asked. "Where are they?"  
"STILL OUTSIDE THE CAPITOL BUILDING."  
"No, no, I meant what files are they trying to access?"  
"THEY ARE STILL SEEKING INFORMATION ABOUT THE FREEDOM FIGHTER NAMED CAT."  
Snively frowned. "Run a quick search, computer. Does the name 'Cat' go   
mentioned anywhere in Robotnik's personal files? Especially the recent ones, say,   
anywhere within now and a week ago."  
"SEVERAL TIMES, SIR."  
"Is this Cat in any way connected with this Epos Nix character? Any correlation at   
all?"  
"YES."  
"Hmmmmmm." Snively was suddenly overcome by one of the strangest, most   
dangerous impulses he had ever had. He didn't know why… he cared little for the   
Freedom Fighters, and would gladly kill the hedgehog if he got the chance…  
"Computer, send the Freedom Fighters a little message. Patch them into this   
communication, too. I want them to hear what Robotnik has to say."  
"YES, SIR."  
"Now let me listen to Robotnik."  
Snively leaned back, and watched the video on his monitor unfold.  
  
Bookshire was frantic, now. "Search for any references in the Robotropolis   
database for an R12 facility. Do it now," he said, before the computer could interrupt   
him. "I don't care how long it takes."  
Lupe's face was sunken, and pale. Her eyes burned with the multiple fires of   
conflicting emotions, but otherwise she had not said a word. She looked as if she had just   
found out that her reality was nothing more real than a child's imagination.  
Bookshire *thumped* his head on the console. None of this was making sense. It   
had to be a trick. But how did Robotnik know that they were coming?  
Cat, the same Cat that Bookshire had seen die with his own eyes, was still listed as   
alive and well on the Robotropolis database. He was supposed to be a roboticized drone,   
and nothing more.  
"REFERENCE FOUND," the computer reported back quickly.  
Bookshire snapped his fingers. "Give it to me."  
"R12 FACILITY," the monitor reported. "ALSO KNOWN AS REPLICANT   
FACTORY. USED 5/17/35, BY ORDER OF ROBOTNIK, TO CREATE ROBOTIC DUPLICATE OF THE PRINCESS   
SALLY ACORN."  
Bookshire's mouth dropped. He remembered that robot; it had been designed to   
quickly infiltrate Knothole and expose its location to Robotnik. For some reason, though,   
it hadn't, and Sonic had later destroyed it in Robotropolis. Everybody in Knothole had   
been fooled by it.  
"No," Lupe managed to sputter. "No!"  
Bookshire grabbed the console with both hands. His knuckles were white. "Tell   
me, computer, *when* was the last time the replicant factory was used. *Keep in mind   
that I have full access to Robotnik's files!*"  
"THE R12 FACILITY WAS USED LAST ON 6/17/36, BY ORDER OF ROBOTNIK, TO CREATE   
A ROBOTIC DUPLICATE OF THE FREEDOM FIGHTER KNOWN AS 'CAT'."  
"No!" Bookshire screamed. He pounded furiously on the console, to no avail. His   
ears burned; he knew they had been fooled, all of them. It couldn't be true.  
"Damn it, damn it, damn it! I didn't check!" Bookshire almost cut off the network   
connection. "I should've checked, should've done an autopsy, something, found out it   
wasn't-"  
Bookshire cut himself off, staring at Lupe. Her face was *twisted*… it was the   
most emotion he had ever seen anyone, especially Lupe, display. It was only one, simple,   
pure passion: anger. Her lips were curled upwards, her teeth bared and grinding against   
one another. Lupe had made fists so tight that her nails cut deep, bloody wells into her   
palms.  
Her eyes were pure flames, shooting hate and loathing stronger than a bullet   
towards the computer monitor. Bookshire was immediately surprised that the monitor   
itself didn't shatter under the assault of Lupe's wrath.  
"I'm a goddamn doctor, and I can't even tell whether or not a patient's real…"  
"Shut up, Bookshire," Lupe snarled.  
"But we -"  
"Shut UP!"  
Before either of them could blink, the monitor flickered, and conveyed Snively's   
relayed surveillance camera image. The first thing Bookshire saw was Ivo Robotnik, red   
cape fluttering in the air, staring at a communications monitor.  
The second thing Bookshire saw was the person on the communications monitor.   
Epos Nix.  
Lupe tore open the hover unit's doors, and threw herself to the ground outside.   
She roared her fury to the polluted skies.  
Bookshire looked at the hover unit's own communication panel, and decided to   
risk an open-air radio transmission to Knothole. He had to warn them.  
  
"Is it a deal, then?" Robotnik's less-than-amused voice rumbled.  
"Twelve hundred thousand gold coins for Knothole's location?" Epos Nix rolled   
his eyes. "It seems to me that Knothole would be worth a lot more to you…"  
"How MUCH more?"  
"When I sold you the location of the Southern Freedom Fighters' encampment, you   
were much more willing to sacrifice what you had, Robotnik. You even let me use your   
treasured replicant factory at long last. I want to see some similar transactions this time."  
Robotnik had his arms crossed. Epos Nix knew that he give anything, absolutely   
anything, to buy Knothole's location, and was taking full advantage of that. Robotnik was   
going to get shattered in the cross-bargaining.  
"Like what?" his metallic vocal cords growled.  
Nix gave a little smile. "How much is the Doomsday device worth to you?" He   
may as well have been committing blasphemy as far as Robotnik was corcerned.  
"NEVER!"  
"Very well. I don't desire your plaything, anyway." Nix sighed. "I can sense my   
time here on Mobius is short. I want only Mobian gold coins, now."  
  
On the other side of a forgotten surveillance camera, Snively practically jumped   
out of his chair. "My time here on Mobius is short," he had said. He was an outsider.   
Snively had seen it in his manner the instant he had spied Epos Nix's form: this man was   
from Earth. His Earth!  
Home.  
"Find that man's location," he ordered the computer.  
  
Robotnik cracked a smile. Mobian gold coins in exchange for Knothole… Epos   
Nix would receive something absolutely worthless, while he would receive something of   
inestimable value… what a delicious idea!  
"Now, that sounds like an bargain," Robotnik said. "How much?"  
"You're the major power on Mobius, Julian," Nix jabbed, making a point of using   
Robotnik's old name. The obese man scowled darkly. "You have more power than   
anyone else on this planet. We're talking in the millions, here."  
"Impossible! Do you actually think that I keep track of where all of   
Mobotropolis's old treasuries are?" Robotnik said. It was an art, that; telling a lie where   
technically he was only asking a question. He *had* kept track of where all of   
Mobotropolis's old banks were. "They're absolutely worthless to me!"  
Nix saw right through it. "Twenty million gold coins. Nothing less for Knothole's   
location."  
"Ten million," Robotnik countered.  
"Twenty."  
"Fifteen!"  
"Twenty."  
"Seventeen!"   
"Twenty."  
Robotnik sighed melodramatically. He knew full well that he had gotten the better   
end of the bargain… Knothole for coins. "Very well, twenty million gold coins."  
"Have your cargo freighters drop it off in the usual place, Julian. I'll be watching."  
"The coins are already on their way, Nix."  
Nix glowered at him. "One false move, and you'll never find Knothole, Robotnik."  
Robotnik held up his hands innocently. "Relax, Mr. Nix. I already learned my   
lesson earlier this week. I won't double-cross you again."  
"Good."  
As the seconds ticked by, Robotnik found himself unable to contain his grin. The   
devilish smile burst out into his cheeks, spreading into a quiet, rumbling laughter.  
"Knothole mean that much to you?" Nix asked dryly.  
"Oh, yes, yes indeed." Robotnik chortled. He hissed out more laughter.  
He saw the hedgehog and his two-tailed companion laying on the ground, dead   
and bloody. He saw the Princess, standing before him, roboticized. He saw his   
SWATbots burn the remaining Freedom Fighters to the ground…  
"Tell me one thing, won't you, Epos?" Robotnik asked, suddenly feeling   
marvelous.  
Nix shrugged. "Depends on what it is."  
"How did you do it? How did you find the Freedom Fighters?"  
"I did what you never could. I actually thought about it."  
Robotnik's grin disappeared for a moment.  
"It was the replicant, you fool, the replicant you agreed to build for me in   
exchange for the location of the Southern Freedom Fighters. Didn't you even wonder why   
I asked for it as payment in the first place?"  
Robotnik waved his hand dismissively. "Of course I know it was the replicant.   
But I've tried that before. It never works; they always figure out that the replicant isn't   
real."  
"I know that would happen with this replicant, too. So I programmed it to die   
once they had brought it inside Knothole. It was the long-lost lover of one of the other   
Freedom Fighters, too, one of their leaders, and nobody would ever doubt her word."  
"Delicious," Robotnik licked his lips.  
"From there, it was a simple matter to use a tracker inside the replicant to   
triangulate Knothole's position."  
  
Snively watched the conversation unfold with growing concern. He had long since   
found the location of Epos Nix's little tent out in the Great Forest; Robotnik had left the   
coordinates sitting in one of his files.  
Now the only question was how deep his betrayal of his uncle would go.  
Minutes ago, he had sent an order to the Doomsday tower to power up Test Pod   
#2. The Doomsday pod was now moving somewhere above the Great Forest, making a   
beeline for Epos Nix's camp. It answered only to Snively, now; not even uncle Julian   
could override the thing.  
He was still inside Robotnik's systems: the computer thought that Snively *was*   
Robotnik. He had full access to every one of Robotnik's files, every one of his machines.   
He could cut off the communication with Nix at a moment's notice.  
Snively felt himself tremble. He hadn't set out to do any of this when he had first   
hacked into Robotnik's files only minutes ago. He had just been conspiring against his   
uncle, in his own little way, nothing more. But now it was too late; he was set to betray   
Robotnik, betray whatever future he had in Robotropolis, betray *everything* for a single   
shot at getting back to home.  
Snively had a creeping feeling that today was the day he was going to die..  
"I can see your barges landing now, Julian," Epos Nix was saying to Robotnik.   
"Very good." He snickered. "I see that finding the coins wasn't as difficult as you   
professed."  
Robotnik glowered. "You have the coins. Now give me Knothole!"  
  
Bookshire gasped, frantically punching buttons. There was nothing he could do.   
He couldn't cut the transmission, couldn't interrupt, couldn't do anything that would stop   
Epos Nix from handing Knothole's location over to Robotnik.  
  
Snively pouted.  
"I'll wait until your airships leave, thank you," Epos Nix snapped back.  
Snively had, as he saw it, two choices. This was one of the few terminals in   
Robotropolis capable of interfering with the communications grid. He could let his   
bastard uncle have Knothole and all its inhabitants easily.  
In the background, Snively heard the whine of the airships' ion thrusters. They   
were lifting off.  
But what would letting Robotnik have Knothole serve? Despite Snively's hatred   
for that damnable hedgehog, he couldn't care less about any of the other inhabitants. The   
only person in Robotropolis who did care about them was Robotnik himself; and he   
wanted nothing less senseless then their complete annihilation.  
Nix nodded in satisfaction as the airships disappeared beyond the canopy of the   
Great Forest.  
Snively decided that it really didn't matter a damn to him what happened to   
Knothole, just so long as he got home. Why not let the fat bastard be happy? Let him kill   
Knothole. It might distract him from Snively's backstabbing.  
Epos Nix grinned. Ivo Robotnik smiled wider, massive square teeth gleaming in   
the light. Nix cleared his throat. "You ready for this, Robotnik? Knothole's coordinates   
are as follows: degrees to the north longitude, twenty-seven-"  
Snively's hand punched down on the "cut-off" button. Epos Nix disappeared from   
view, replaced by a "TRANSMISSION INTERFERENCE" error message.  
Snively shrugged. The Freedom Fighters irritated his uncle. That by itself was a   
plus. And besides… Snively decided that if he were to die today, he wanted someone left   
behind capable of destroying his fat uncle.  
Robotnik's cry of outrage echoed throughout the castle. Snively snickered.  
  
"Ol' Epos Nix sold you guys your radar equipment, huh?" Sonic asked,   
skeptically.  
He, Sally, and Apollo were standing out in the graveyard meadow. Sally's eyes   
kept drifting to her father's symbolic gravestone.  
"I didn't know he was this popular around Mobius," Apollo said. "He sold his little   
trinkets to Knothole, too?"  
Sally nodded. "He's the one who sold us the AK-47 and Uzi."  
Apollo's brow shot up. "He definitely didn't have any equipment like that when he   
traveled through our camp."  
Sally blew empty air out through her lips, and looked skyward. Unlike the day of   
Cat's burial, the sky was clear blue most of the way to the horizon. It was beautiful out; as   
a kid, this was the kind of weather that Sally lived for. Yet, despite the picturesque   
climate, Sally felt an underlying tension crackling through the air, almost like electricity. It   
was intangible, and none of the others seemed to feel it. Yet, it made her feel nervous and   
fidgety, like she was in a video game that had at last reached its final act.  
"This is quite a coincidence," Sally said, mostly to herself. "Epos Nix appears in   
your camp, practically forces radar equipment on you. Only weeks later, the your lives are   
saved by it."  
Sonic's arms were akimbo. "I think its time we had a little chat with our   
Overlander buddy, don't you, Sal?"  
Sally felt her head shake imperceptibly. "I don't know, Sonic… let's not forget   
how much Nix has done for us. He sold us the bullet weapons we need. We couldn't have   
gotten through Doomsday without them."  
"Like I said before, *Sal*," Sonic prodded, "I just don't trust the guy."  
Antoine charged into the meadow, almost tripping himself as he tried to skid to a   
stop just before Sally. "I'm afraid it is getting much worse, my Prinzess," he panted.   
"Bookshire has been a-calling us on ze radio transmitter. 'E keeps babbling something   
about Epoz Nixes and Robotnik. It is sounding very bad."  
"Oh my gosh!" This is it; somehow, Sally had known something like this would   
happen today. The air virtually cracked with tension ready to be released. "I have to talk   
to him!"  
Sonic let the beginnings of a grin slip onto his features. "Told 'ya, so, Sal." He   
grabbed Sally, and a blue and brown blur sped off towards Knothole.  
Apollo looked at Antoine, and then at the rapidly disappearing hedgehog.  
"Well, now what?" Apollo asked.  
"Well, I am not to be knowing about you, but I, for one, am staying right 'ere!"   
Antoine declared. "I do not care what zey say. Zere is something going to happen today,   
something big, I can feel it."  
"So you're just going to stay here, then? Stay out of the action? Out of the way?"   
Apollo burst out, incredulous.  
"Zat is ze plan, yes. Ze Prinzess and ze hedgehog will take care of any troubles, be   
certain of zat."  
"I guess I'm used to giving orders, and doing things like being in the battle. I'm   
out of here!" Apollo said. He grunted.  
"Go on, zen! Be a feul! But know zat ze hedgehog will beat you to eet, and   
probably make fun of you while doing so."  
Apollo didn't charge forward.  
Antoine raised a triumphant eyebrow. "Ah, I am glad you are coming to my   
senses, n'est pas? Eet is bad to place yourself at risk with stupid…" Antoine turned, and   
trailed off.  
Apollo was on the ground, unmoving, blood puddled around a black wound in his   
skull. He groaned, trying one last time to get up, but fell limp at last.  
Cat was standing over him, dead eyes boring straight into Antoine. His shallow   
grave now looked like an empty hole. Someone had crawled *out* of it.  
Some of Apollo's blood had spattered onto Cat's left arm and fist, which the   
walking cadaver still held clenched. It swung limply at his side like a club.  
Antoine couldn't even find the courage to scream. He only managed to barely   
duck the first blow Cat sent his way. The second connected with Antoine's skull.  
The corpse stood over Antoine's motionless form. Then his dead gaze fell to the   
Great Forest, and in the direction that he knew led to Epos Nix's camp.  
Thought fragment: PRIORITY ONE: DEFEND EPOS NIX.  
Moving with speed that should have been impossible to such a fragile body, Cat's   
replicant charged into the trees.  
  
"No, no, Bookshire, that can't be right!"  
"Princess," came the static-crackled reply, "I saw him with my own eyes. Nix   
came *this* close to giving Knothole's position away."  
"But, Cat? A replicant?"  
"Yes, Princess! I've seen those records. A replicant controlled by Nix. He used   
to lure us into taking it back to Knothole, so Nix could track its location."  
Sonic eyes burned with righteous anger. "I told 'ya so, Sal!" he repeated. "Nix's a   
double-crosser! A cheat!"  
Sally's eyes softened. "Where's Lupe, Bookshire?"  
"She, uh, she seems to have disappeared. I can't find her anywhere."  
"When did this happen?"  
"When we discovered that Cat was a replicant. She looked angry."  
Sally sighed. "Are you sure that it was Nix, Booky?"  
"Princess, I've got photo-identification. There's no way that it could *not* be   
Nix."  
"Hell's bells!" Sonic grabbed the radio, and nearly threw it to the ground. "Sally,   
do you realize what this means? We've been played for fools all along."  
Bunnie's eyes widened. "Cat, the Southern Freedom Fighters, the Uzis… it's all   
just some kinda bizarre game!"  
"And the grand prize is us," Sonic added angrily.  
"Sounds worse than Robotnik!" Rotor chimed in.  
"I knew we should've never paid him," Geoffrey St. John grumbled. "Doesn't ever   
bother any of you how I'm always right?"  
"Can it, stinky!" Sonic jabbed.  
"C'mere and say that, pincushion," Geoff challenged.  
"Never mind you," Sonic said. "I'm gonna go out and teach Epos Nix a lesson.   
Sal, you with me?"  
"Of course."  
"Ah'm coming, too," Bunnie said.  
"Grab on, then! Time's short!" Sally and Bunnie each grabbed one of his arms. A   
blue streak tore through Knothole, leaving nothing but footprints and wind behind it, and   
they were gone.  
  
"Sonic!" Sally shouted, struggling to be heard above the wind whipping past the   
hedgehog. "We have to turn around! We need to arm ourselves."  
"Not with any of Nix's Uzis, we won't."  
"We don't know what kind of hidden surprises Nix has at his camp!"  
"That's why I'm hoping to catch him by surprise." He tossed a quick glance back   
at Sally. "Besides, when you're fast enough to dodge bullets, who needs weapons?"  
"Remember six days ago, Sonic? When we first met Nix? He said his weapon's   
bullets could move faster than you!"  
"Well, we'll just see about that." As if to prove his point, Sonic began moving   
even faster.  
  
Sonic arrived inside Nix's camp even before the sonic boom shock-wave hit, giving   
anybody there absolutely no warning that he was coming. Dizzy from the ride, Sally and   
Bunnie hopped off.  
Sonic threw aside the flap of Epos Nix's tent. "Gotcha!" he shouted triumphantly.   
Then he scratched his head, and threw the tent flap all the way back. There was no one   
inside.  
"Aw, nuts," he cursed disparagingly.  
The campsite was devoid of life. Other than a still-smoking campfire and an   
overabundance of wooden crates in the tent, there was no other sign of recent human   
habitation.  
"Where else could 'e be?" Bunnie wondered aloud.  
Sally sighed. "Well, we'll have to start searching the brush and the trees."  
Sonic tossed his hands into the air. "Great… now we'll never find him."  
Picking her way through the underbrush, Sally checked the dirt closely for any sign   
of the human. "Be on the lookout for footprints, especially," she said. Except for the   
snapping of twigs and dried leaves, the clearing was silent for the next few minutes.  
"He's not here, Sal!" Sonic shouted finally. Whatever little patience he possessed   
had been worn to its breaking point. "He's not in the campsite, he's not anywhere around   
it, and he's picked up whatever clues he left behind of his leaving. No footprints, no   
nothing." His arms went akimbo again. "Somebody tipped him off."  
"I know, I know. He's gotten away," she grimaced. "But I don't think anyone   
tipped him off."  
"Oh, yeah? How'd he know to be gone, and when to leave no trail?"  
"No, Sonic. No one at Knothole is a traitor. I refuse to believe it."  
"Whoa, whoa, I never said anyone at Knothole! I just said that *someone* tipped   
him off that we were coming."  
"Then who?"  
Bunnie burst in. "Sally, behind you!"  
"I'm afraid the tipster was me, Princess," a scratchy, horribly familiar voice said   
from behind Sally. She gasped, and ducked.  
Something swung through the air just above her head. Something large, heavy,   
and above all, fast.  
Sally rolled forward just in time to avoid the second strike. She landed on her rear,   
looking face up into "Cat's" impossibly dead eyes. His body was just as twisted and   
deformed as it had been when he had been dragged into Bookshire's infirmary. The   
broken arm and leg moved an grace that should've been altogether impossible. Sally saw   
that Cat was using the broken arm as a club, and that club was coming down towards her   
head. She couldn't move out of the way in time.  
Bunnie's metallic leg kicked out, and struck Cat on the side of the face. His   
balance was disrupted; he looked for a moment like he would fall. When he turned his   
head back towards Sally, she could see that Bunnie's kick had torn off the top layer of   
flesh, reveling the dark metal skeletal structure that lay underneath. One of Cat's eyes was   
missing, leaving only a metal socket and a glowing, red light.  
Sonic revved up his legs and did several complete circles around Cat, hoping to   
confuse it as he had Sally's replicant a year earlier. "Fight *me*, why don'cha, tin head?"   
he taunted.  
Cat stuck out his arm and let Sonic's momentum carry his face into it. Sonic fell   
down, stunned. "Predictable," the robot chided.  
Bunnie's metal arm shot out to land another strike on Cat's face. He took the blow   
hard, but this time used Bunnie's own strength against her. When his shoulder flew   
around in response to the impact, he held out his right arm and clubbed the rabbit in the   
side of the head. She stumbled backwards.  
Cat spoke again. "This is private property, Freedom Fighters. You are no longer   
welcome on Epos Nix's land."  
Sally had managed to scramble to her feet. Cat turned towards her, and began   
advancing. She knew that if she survived this, his scarred, half-metal, half-false-flesh face   
would become the stuff of nightmares. He readied his left arm again.  
A burst of light tore through the clearing, and Cat collapsed in a shower of sparks.   
The powerful laser beam tore straight through his chest. Smoke poured forth from the   
replicant.  
Sally let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. She glanced upwards, at   
the direction the laser blast had come from, and felt her heart stop beating.  
The massive metal framework of the second Doomsday Test Pod hovered impassively   
overheard.  
"Oh, no," Sonic breathed quickly. Sally's muscles were frozen. She could only   
look up into the test pod's downward-trained laser cannon.  
So this is what death looks like…  
"You can relax, Freedom Fighters," Snively's voice said from a speaker hidden   
somewhere in the Test Pod's skeleton. "Believe it or not, I'm not here to kill you."  
"I'll take not," Sonic said.  
"Oh, you're just a riot, aren't you, hedgehog? No - the only reason I'm here is to   
Epos Nix, and to find the Earth. Nix knows the way, I'm sure of it."  
"And we're supposed to believe you? Again? Why?"  
"Quite frankly, I really don't care whether or not you believe me. I just won't   
shoot you. Not yet, anyway." Sniv's voice paused. "What's this? Aha - the Test Pod's   
scanners are reading a heat signature that matches the human species four hundred meters   
north - northeast. Nix…"  
"I bet we can beat'cha there, Snidely," Sonic taunted.  
"Hmmmmm. I bet you could, too. Just so long as you don't kill him, I don't care."  
The speaker clicked off, and the half-finished Doomsday pod coasted over the Great   
Forest.  
  
The Test Pod, remote-piloted by Snively, actually arrived at the same time as   
Sonic and the other Freedom Fighters.  
Epos Nix was standing, along with several extremely large wooden boxes and   
metal cargo crates, on a circular gray-metal platform that had a surface that gleamed like   
freshly polished glass. He was keying in commands to a small computer console that   
rested just off of the platform.  
"Just stop right there, Nix!" Snively's voice boomed. "Step away from the   
computer!"  
Epos Nix looked up at the Doomsday pod and Freedom Fighters, grinning like a   
maniac. He did as he was ordered.  
"You have more than a couple questions to answer, Overlander," Sonic spoke   
angrily.  
Nix ignored the hedgehog, and glanced up towards the Doomsday pod. He   
squinted against the midday sun. "I know that voice. You're Robotnik's little lackey,   
aren't you?"  
Snively growled. "Not for much longer. I said step away from the console!"  
Nix raised his hands, stepping back. "It was a beautiful game, this time, wasn't it?"   
he smiled cheerfully. He leaned against one of the numerous metal crates in the   
background. "I just love sending the pawns off to do battle with each other."  
"Shut up!" Sniv yelled.  
"I imagine the good doctor is quite upset," Nix commented casually. "Is that why   
he sent you?"  
Snively growled. It was an unusual sound coming from a voice so high and nasal   
as his. "Robotnik didn't send me. I'm here of my own volition."  
"Oh?"  
"I know where you're from. The Earth."  
Nix chuckled. "Ah, yes. What about it?"  
"I want you to take me there."  
Nix began to giggle. "What, are you homesick?"  
Snively didn't answer.  
The grin fell off of Nix's face suddenly. "Okay, I think we still have time to   
bargain. What's it worth to you?"  
"You're charging a price?" Snively asked, as if surprised.  
"But of course. What're you willing to pay."  
Back in Robotropolis, Snively considered his options. He opened his mouth, ready   
to say anything, promise anything, and grovel, when he remembered his situation.   
Showing weakness hadn't exactly gotten him anywhere in the corridors of the Doomsday   
tower days ago. He wasn't about to make the same mistake again.  
After all, Snively told himself, he had all the advantages here.  
The Test Pod's laser cannon retrained itself on Nix's forehead. "It's worth your   
life."  
Nix was unimpressed. He shook his head. "Sorry, doesn't sound like a good deal   
to me. I don't give free rides."  
Snively sputtered.  
"Hey, Snidely, let us take a question, huh?" Sonic shouted up to the oblong metal   
skeleton.  
Epos Nix looked down, and arched his eyebrows as if noticing the three Freedom   
Fighters for the very first time. "Ah, Princess, I believe you still owe me fifteen thousand   
coins. AK-47s aren't cheap, after all."  
Sonic blinked. "Wha-? Wait! We're here to arrest you!"  
"Why, Freedom Fighters, I thought we had a deal. Gold for bullet weapons. Are   
you voiding it?" Epos Nix exclaimed, his tone serious but the corners of his lips working   
their way into just a sliver of a smile.  
The hedgehog recovered. "Go to hell!"  
"Tut tut, Princess. I thought I could trust you enough to give you my weapons in   
advance. I guess I was wrong."  
"Consider it partial payment for what you tried to pull on us with Cat," Sonic shot   
back.  
"The replicant was simply a part of another transaction. This is how the business   
world works, and it certainly doesn't give you the right to reneg on our contract."  
"You son of bitch!" Sonic revved up his legs, preparing to enter a spin. Sally held   
him back.  
"Why?" she shouted. "Why do all this?"  
Nix arched an eyebrow. "You still haven't figured it out?"  
"No. Why stage battle after battle just for those worthless coins? What's the   
point?"  
"These coins may be worthless here, Princess," Nix said, patting a crate full of   
coins, "but not on my home world. Back there, I can melt all these down and make a very   
nice profit on the gold. It's surprisingly rare there. I'll completely smash the world's   
commodity market."  
"The Earth…" Snively huffed, finally able to speak again. "Tell me how to get   
there. Now!"  
Epos Nix stared at the Test Pod defiantly. "No."  
"Make a profit?" Sally repeated, more inquisitive than anything.  
Nix chuckled. "Yes, that's basically my goal in life. I have goods and information   
to sell, and buyers to take them. So what if I play both sides of a war against each other   
to make a buck? That's what any good arms dealer will do."  
"But… why? That's it? That's all there is to your life?"  
"Princess, my world has a very complex economic system that creates people like   
me. You Mobians should really try it sometime. It's called 'capitalism'."  
Suddenly, as if Nix had detected something that the others had yet to see, Nix's   
face darkened, and he moved back towards the computer console.  
"Hey!" Snively barked. "I said step away!"  
Epos Nix ignored him, and keyed in a series of buttons. The surface of the entire   
twenty-meter disk began to glow with a hideous white energy.  
"Step away! Get down!" Snively screamed.  
Nix, his body partially transparent, glanced sharply across the clearing at   
something that had just burst into it… Sally whirled around.  
Lupe charged into the clearing, shoving a banana clip into the bottom socket of an   
AK-47 assault rifle. Her eyes burned with hatred, a malevolence so intense that Sally   
wished she would never see anything like it ever again.  
Before Sally could shout anything, Lupe's AK-47 was in full automatic mode, and   
unloading dozens of bullets into Epos Nix's body. Sally could've sworn she actually saw   
the bullets launch from the weapon, soar through the air towards Epos Nix….  
…and go *through* Epos Nix, as if his body were a ghost, or hologram. Nix just   
stood there in the warm glow of metal pad underneath him, form fading away entirely.   
Sally knew that he just wasn't *there* anymore…  
Epos Nix, the cargo crates, and the disk itself winked out of existence unscathed   
and untouched by any of Lupe's bullets. Nix had activated the teleportation sequence just   
in time to avoid them.  
Lupe fell to the ground, sobbing. It was the first time Sally had ever seen an   
emotional display that powerful from the Wolf Pack leader. The butt of the AK-47 hit the   
ground next to her, and it fell limply to the soil.  
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Snively's voice cried desperately. "He CAN'T be   
gone! IT can't be gone!" Even the metal pad that had apparently teleported Nix away   
from Mobius had disappeared, gone where the arms dealer was.  
"Yo, Sal, let's get out of here!"  
"I was ready to DO anything for…" Snively's voice broke off, and he realized that   
he was stuck here, on Mobius, for good, now. He was stuck with Robotnik. "I'll KILL   
you all!" he screamed.  
"What? But I thought you said that…"  
"It's YOUR fault!" Snively shrieked. He sounded like he was on the verge of   
tears. "YOUR fault he got away! Kill you ALL!"  
The laser cannon was leveled downward. Sally looked upwards, stunned. No   
place to run. No place to hide.  
A white streak shot skyward from the tent that had been Epos Nix's, and slammed   
into Test Pod #2. A blinding light hit Sally's eye, and it was all she could do to keep from   
being blinded. A shock wave of compressed air slammed her to the ground.  
The Test Pod, although only an incomplete framework skeleton, was strong.   
When the fire faded, it was still afloat. Sparks flew forth from the interior of the metal   
rods.  
The Test Pod wobbled for a moment, and more fire spewed forth from the center   
of it. The force of the explosion had tilted it to the side, and the engines hadn't corrected   
for the angle. They couldn't correct for the angle, Sally saw. She looked up into the   
pod's exposed core and saw that several of the pod's thrusters had been melted to slag.  
The pod shook for one last moment, and the remaining engines whined in protest,   
sounding like a last, tortured scream. The Doomsday Pod slid almost smoothly to the   
ground only fifty meters away. It smashed itself to pieces on the ground, shooting flames   
skyward.  
Before she could breathe, she heard Epos Nix's voice. It was a recording. "So I   
lied. I did have some missile weapons with me after all. That was a missile on a time-  
delay launch, Freedom Fighters."  
Face ashen, Sonic grabbed Sally, Bunnie, and Lupe's prone form and ran without   
saying another word.  
Nix's recorded voice chuckled, echoing through the trees behind him. "I guess   
that one was for free."  
  
***  
Day Eight  
  
He lay, he floated, in a state of eternal nothingness, insensate, just barely on the   
border of achieving conscious thought. What scraps of his mind worked now wished to   
remain this way, forever, yet they knew that even the attempt to fight the inevitable would   
only bring about its more assured arrival.  
'Am I finally dead?' Snively's pseudo-conscious mind thought wonderingly. A   
bitter taste of hope lingered.  
Feeling gradually returned to his body, like the tainted caress of a long repressed   
memory… it summoned images of his uncle to the disorganized morass of his wits. God,   
if Julian had found out…  
Snively cracked an eyelid open. The unblinking red glare of a medical bot's gaze   
bored into sensitive pupils. He blinked it off, and forced his head to turn away. Pain   
rippled down his spine.  
The bot's gaze followed him, still shining its stare straight into his face. A groan   
escaped Snively's lips, and he shut his eyes again. He tried to focus on unconsciousness,   
returning to that state of death-like bliss once more, until he saw, still burned into his   
retina underneath his eyelids, the bright white glare of the teleportation pad that had taken   
Epos Nix off this planet.  
After losing contact with the second Test Pod, Snively had rushed several hover   
units and Spy Orbs over to Epos Nix's campsite. Everything was gone: Nix, the pad that   
had taken him, the Freedom Fighters; the only thing that remained was a desolate and   
useless tent. Just to add insult to injury, a tag had still been visible on the tent's side. It   
had read "Manufactured in the USA." The last thing Nix had left on the planet.  
Snively had worked frantically to hide his treachery from his uncle. Judging by the   
fact that he was still alive, it had worked, too. Robotnik had known that someone had   
hacked into his personal files, and that same person had cut off his communication with   
Epos Nix at the last moment. What he didn't know, though, was that it had been Snively   
who had done that. Snively's earlier gambit had worked: Robotnik thought that it had   
been the Freedom Fighters parked outside his castle who had done all that. He had never   
bothered to fully check his log files.  
What Robotnik *did* know, however, was that Doomsday Test Pod #2 had been   
destroyed, and that Snively was at fault. The last thing Snively remembered had been   
Robotnik's metal left arm sweeping down towards his frail body.  
Resisting the temptation to roll over on the bed, Snively cracked his eye open, and   
felt his gaze meet the impassive stare of the medical bot. "How bad is it?" he asked,   
disgusted at how squeaky his voice sounded. It hurt to breathe.  
"Two fractured ribs, several strained vertebrae," the medibot intoned. "Fractured   
right arm. Mild concussion and cranial contusion. Internal damage to digestive organs."  
"Which ones?"  
"Intestinal and kidney damage. Surgeries to correct the problems have been been   
conducted during the patient's length of unconsciousness."  
Snively moaned. He could feel the after-effects of the bots' surgical procedures on   
his stomach. They never used enough anesthetic. God, it felt like a piece of ice lodged in   
his stomach cavity.  
"Recovery time?"  
"Another two days observation has been recommended. However, you are to be   
released to your duties in three hours, by order of Robotnik."  
"Three hours?" Snively protested. "Does he really think I'll be ready to return to   
duty in three hours? After what he did to me?"  
"By order of Robotnik," the bot repeated.  
Well, at least that meant that Robotnik still had not caught on to his betrayal. A   
smile curled up the corners of Snively's mouth. If only Robotnik knew that if it hadn't   
been for Snively, he would have Knothole in the palm of his fist…  
Snively's eyelids fluttered shut. If his uncle had entitled him to only three hours of   
rest, he was determined to make the most of it.  
'Epos Nix may have gotten away', Snively thought to himself as the dream state   
returned, 'but now I know that the Earth is still out there. I can get back home. I will find   
it. Not even Uncle Julian will stand in my way…'  
  
Evening's twilight fist tightened around Knothole village. A crackling fire roared   
in the pit of the dining hall's fireplace, spewing smoke out the chimney and into the   
darkening night sky. The day's last few rays of sunlight had disappeared beneath the   
canopy of the Great Forest over an hour ago, leaving the dining hall bathed in firelight.   
The artificial glow of the light bulbs powered by Knothole's water wheel only managed to   
accent the illumination provided by the blaze.  
A day earlier, Lupe, together with Canus and a freshly recovered Reynard, had   
journeyed back to the wolves' camp out in the Great Unknown. Apollo had been moved   
from Bookshire's infirmary to the Southern Freedom Fighter's new encampment. The   
other Freedom Fighters had insisted that their doctor was more aptly trained in treating   
concussions, and Bookshire had reluctantly agreed. Antoine was still recovering from   
Cat's blow to his skull, resting in Bookshire's tent.  
Even Geoffrey St. John was gone, having left to continue working with the Rebel   
Underground. With Antoine and Geoff, two of Knothole's noisiest inhabitants,   
temporarily out of the way, Sonic was overjoyed to find that Knothole was… quiet   
tonight.  
Sonic and Sally were alone in the dining room, nestled together in one of the larger   
chairs facing the fireplace. Sally's arm was draped across his shoulder; occasionally, her   
index finger would idly twirl one of the quills on his back.  
'Mondo sappy,' he thought to himself. He knew that he should be repulsed by a   
moment like this. He knew that he would promptly die of embarrassment if anybody else   
came walking through the dining room's door. Yet… he couldn't break away from this.   
Sonic was almost mortified to find himself enjoying something he had otherwise never   
derived any pleasure from: a slow moment.  
Still, the hedgehog genes itched to break the silence. "I told ya' so, Sal," he said at   
last. "Am I always right, or what?"  
"No. But it helps that I have no idea what you're talking about."  
"Epos Nix. I was right. We shouldn't have trusted the guy."  
"You were right, Sonic," Sally relented.  
He cupped a hand to his ear. "I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch that."  
Sally sighed, an elaborate gesture of mock defeat. "You were right, Sonic."  
"And don't forget it."  
Sally flashed a knowing smile, a smile that said to Sonic that she knew more than   
he did, and that he had just set himself up to be the target of a joke. He hated that smile.   
"Of course, that would mean that Geoffrey was right, too. More right than you, actually."  
"Huh?"  
"If had known eight days ago what I know now, I would've listened to Geoff   
when he suggested that we just not pay Nix at all."  
"Uh, yeah, same here, I guess. I wouldn't have met him at all."  
"But then you actually argued against Geoff," Sally pointed out. "*You* insisted   
that we pay him."  
"What? Sal, stop it, you're givin' me another headache!"  
"Face it, Sonic. Geoff was right… and you were wrong."  
"Guh? No! But we didn't know then what we know now!"  
Sally nodded. "Exactly. I think that, given the choices and the information we   
had, we all made the correct decisions. So neither of us were either right or wrong.   
Right?"  
Sonic stared at her blankly. "But I was right!"  
"Careful, Sonic. Remember that if you admit that you were right, than Geoffrey   
was more correct in the end then you were."  
Sonic's eyes were horrified. "Sal, that's cheating! I was right!"  
Sally gave him a light slap to the chest. "Just be quiet, you big dope," she chided   
mockingly.  
Sonic, eyes still swimming with confusion, decided that it would be safest to obey.  
Sally gave a triumphant giggle, and let silence fall across the dining room. Staring   
into the fireplace for several minutes, her eyes grew more serious.  
"We still don't know all the details," she said, breaking the silence again. "About   
Nix, I mean. Where did he come from? How did he fool us so well?"  
Sonic rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "I'm still not quite sure what his motives   
were."  
Sally frowned. "Well, as soon as Antoine finishes his recovery, I'm going to send   
Bookshire out to Robotropolis again. We need to more information… if Robotnik can   
take advantage of us like that again, he might actually get his hands on Knothole." She   
shuddered, thinking about Bookshire's report on Nix's last transmission to Robotropolis.   
How close he'd come.  
"Good thinkin', Sal."  
"We do know a little, though. Nicole and I have projected that Nix was the one   
who sold the location of the Southern Freedom Fighters' encampment to Robotnik."  
"I had that much figured out, you know. The guy's just plain evil."  
"That much I'm not sure of."  
"*What*?" Sonic shot up. "Sal, you've got to be kidding me! He came close to   
handing Knothole's location to Robuttnik!"  
Sally sighed. "I know, I know… it would be too easy to believe that he's but our   
sworn enemy. But… Nix saved our lives back at his tent, too. He destroyed Snively's   
Doomsday pod, and for the life of me I don't know why."  
Sonic frowned.  
"Even though Nix betrayed Apollo's group, he was also the one who sold them the   
radar equipment they needed to detect Robotnik's armada. They would never have gotten   
the early warning without it. Nix knew that Robotnik would be coming, because he gave   
away their location, but he saved their lives anyway."  
"That's because the bastard just wanted to make a profit," Sonic said darkly.   
"Don't forget what he tried to pull with Cat. He deliberately messed with our emotions,   
and use them and Lupe as a wedge to find Knothole."  
Sally's head came down to rest on her knees. "I haven't forgotten that, Sonic."   
She sighed. "Nix must have heard Lupe talking about Cat while we were still training at   
his camp. But Cat's replicant, presumably operating under Nix's orders, was also the one   
who warned *us* about Robotnik's attack on the Southern Freedom Fighters. Nix didn't   
need to do that, but he did anyway. Why?"  
Sonic glowered. "So are you saying that if Nix shows up again, we thank him for   
all his kind work?"  
"Of course not!"  
The fireplace crackled and spat sparks for several silent moments.  
"I just… don't know. Not about Nix, not about the weapons… nothing…" Sally   
relented.  
"Well, I *do* know one thing, Sal," Sonic said, staring into the roaring fire. The   
dancing light formed an odd reflection in his eyes. Sally would have said that they   
flickered with anger. "Epos Nix isn't gone. He's probably back at that 'Earth' place   
Snively was whining about, but I know that he'll be back. He has the means to do it, and   
he has Knothole's coordinates, still up for sale. If we see him again, I won't hesitate to   
kill him."  
Sally looked at him, and reluctantly agreed with Sonic. The Freedom Fighters had   
sworn that they would never allow anything to endanger Knothole, and each of them was   
willing to either die or kill to ensure its safety.  
The fire provided the only commentary for the next several moments, filling the   
dining hall with a blissful silence.  
Until the unmistakable thunderclap roar of an Uzi, firing at full automatic,   
shattered the peace. The rat-a-tat-tat echoed through the distant forest canopy. Sally shot   
straight up in her seat. Before she knew it, she and Sonic had burst out of the dining hall.   
They weren't alone: doors all across the village were thrown open, and the curious and   
frightful were peering out into the night. Bunnie and Bookshire stood out in the open  
"What the hoo-hah is that?" Bunnie asked, raising her voice in panic. The Uzi was   
still firing in the distance.  
Sonic's head swiveled around, listening carefully to the weapons fire. "It's coming   
from the power ring pool!"  
The Uzi finally fell silent. Sally had counted the number of shots; whoever was   
firing had unloaded an entire clip.  
Sonic and Sally ran breathlessly towards the pond, stopping only when they   
reached the shore. Nobody was immediately visible, but Sally heard heavy breathing in the   
nearby foliage, and burst through the bushes. She stopped dead in her tracks.  
Tails was standing alone in between the trees, legs trembling. His arms were   
hugged around himself. An Uzi lay on the ground at his feet.  
"Oh my gosh…"  
Tails looked up, startled. His eyes were brimming with tears. "Aunt Sally! I   
didn't mean…" his gaze fell back to the Uzi. "It was an accident!"  
Sonic arrived behind Sally. "Oh, man!" He instantly figured out what happened.  
"I just wanted to look at it!" Tails burst out. "Then it went off… I couldn't stop   
it!"  
"Are you okay?" Sonic asked. Tails nodded soberly. "I thought I told you to stay   
away from these things!"  
"I know… I just wanted to see how they worked…" Tails trailed off, biting his lip.   
He was on the verge of sobbing. Sally's face had changed. Instead of an expression of   
concern and surprise, she now wore a mask of resolute determination. "Aunt S-Sally,   
please don't be mad…"  
Sally took the fox cub by the hand. The touch alone seemed to reassure him.   
"We'll have to talk about this later, Tails. Right now, I'm just glad that you're not hurt."  
Tails sniffled, and rubbed his free hand against his nose.  
"Sonic, can you take Tails back to his hut? There's something I have to do right   
now."  
Sonic nodded. "Of course. C'mon, big guy. Let's go." The two disappeared into   
the foliage, heading in Knothole's direction.  
Sally waited until they were far out of earshot, then she swore. She spoke words   
that Tails wouldn't have understood, and that would've made Sonic leap backwards in   
surprise. She reached down, and picked up the Uzi.  
Her gaze ran down the weapon's smooth barrel, eyeing it carefully like it were a   
snake feigning death. Moments later, she found herself back in Knothole, knuckles   
rapping lightly on the door to Rotor's hut.  
The door slid open, and the walrus peered out. He saw Sally. "Is everything all   
right?"  
"I need two things, Rotor. Think you can help me out?"  
"Well, sure. Got nothing better to do. What?"  
"I need you to scour the village and the storage areas, and collect every last bullet   
weapon, and every clip of ammunition for either the Uzis or the AK-47s."  
"No problem. What for?"  
"That's the second thing…"  
An hour later, all of Knothole's AK-47s and Uzis lay in a small hole dug into the   
soil on the fringes of Knothole village. The huts that comprised the town were just barely   
visible in the evening's moonlight.  
Sally added another layer of wood planks to the pile. The stack had been put   
together in the quickest, most slipshod manner, but it would suit her purposes.  
"Are you sure you want to do this, Princess?" Rotor asked solemnly.  
"Yes," she answered simply. The mask of determination hadn't left her face since   
encountering Tails. She added one last stick of wood onto the pile. "That should do it."  
Rotor looked longingly at the stack of timber. The metal and plastic pieces of   
Nix's bullet weapons occasionally broke the surface of the pile. "But… these can be   
useful tools, Sally. Just think about how much damage they did to Robotnik while we had   
them."  
"Just think about how much damage they've done, and could do, to us. To the   
entire planet."  
"I know Epos Nix just isn't right in the head. But just because we got these   
weapons from him doesn't mean that we have to destroy them," Rotor protested quietly.  
Sally's expression never softened. "We have to. But not because of Nix."  
"Then…" Rotor stopped. He could see that arguing would be pointless. He   
issued a reluctant sigh.  
"Light the fire, Rotor."  
Minutes later, Sally stood at a distance, watching the flames of the impromptu   
bonfire lick skywards. The plastic pieces of the Uzis and AK-47s had already melted, and   
the fire was beginning to work its charms on the metal components. Occasionally, the fire   
would tremble or burst outward, becoming a different color momentarily. Sally only   
stared at the bits of green fire that occasionally fought against the prominent orange-hued   
blaze. The chemicals in the ammunition especially had an odd way of burning…  
As the fire wore on, Sally stopped seeing the bright flares of exploding chemicals   
and the white-hot glow of melting metal. She stood shock-still, as though in a dream-  
state, and saw her planet's future, free of Nix's bullet weapons. Memories of the past   
week's dreams and nightmares vanished… it was as if some dark burden had been lifted   
from Mobius itself, cleansed in the flames that flickered throughout the night.  
  
***  
Day Fifteen  
  
"ACCESS TO THAT SYSTEM IS RESTRICTED," the stolen hover craft's   
monitor blinked.  
"Activate cryptosmasher software," Bookshire ordered. Lupe leaned over his   
shoulder, eyes intent on the ticking numbers and computer jargon flashing past.  
"ACCESS GRANTED."  
Bookshire's hover unit rested, unnoticed, on a ledge outside one of the numerous   
security towers on the outskirts of Robotropolis. A cable led from the hover unit to a   
small network port on the side of the docking ledge. It was early morning; a thick smog   
choked the streets and skies over the city.  
In the hazy distance, the unfinished Doomsday tower loomed over the dark city.   
Ever since Robotnik had lost his chance at finding Knothole, construction on the terrible   
machine had been ordered to move faster, and security was tighter than ever before.   
Specks just visible in the haze marked the numerous new hover unit patrols that   
continually circled it. That meant that security had been lightened in other areas to   
provide the extra SWATbot forces that Robotnik demanded, and Bookshire and Lupe   
were here to take full advantage of that.  
"Tap into the record files of SWATbot factory #2. Give me the current status of   
worker bot #4325041." Bookshire said.  
"WORKER BOT #4325041 IS CURRENTLY OPERATING ASSEMBLY-LINE   
POSITION 32B ON SWATBOT FACTORY #2."  
Lupe frowned, and addressed the computer. "Are there any cameras nearby?"  
"YES."  
"Show us one of them. Make sure it displays the worker bot."  
The monitor blinked again, and displayed a video image. There was no sound.  
For several long, sad moments, the hover unit was silent.  
Bookshire nodded despondently. "Yeah. That's Cat, all right."  
"I know," Lupe said mournfully.  
On the monitor a roboticized cougar stood next to one of the conveyer belts,   
surrounded by his other robot brethren. Dull red eyes stared straight ahead. His hands   
moved mindlessly across the metal parts before him in a rigid pattern. He was assembling   
bolts that would later fit into the leg of a SWATbot.  
"That's been his world," Bookshire frowned, "for over a year. He's been trapped   
here, like that, ever since we lost him a year ago."  
Lupe stared forlornly at the glowing crimson eyes.  
"I've… I've pieced together how Epos Nix did it," Bookshire continued. "He   
probably had Robotnik made a replicant of Cat in exchange for something else, probably   
in exchange for something like the coordinates of the Southern Freedom Fighters. That   
was the only day Cat's been away from his post in this factory: when Robotnik brought   
him to the replicant facility, so he could scan in his form and make a robotic copy."  
Lupe was silent. Her face was again unreadable.  
"So we were all along… unfortunately. Robotnik did roboticize Cat the day he   
caught him, over a year ago. All because of a stupid robot in the air ducts…"  
Bookshire, too, fell silent. Cat continued moving his metal paws in the rhythm of   
machine assembly, oblivious to his distant observers.  
Lupe finally spoke.  
"One day, Cat… one day, we'll finish the deroboticizer. You'll be the first one I   
come for, I swear it…" her fingers brushed across the computer monitor. She ignored the   
occasional snap of static electricity that attacked her fur.  
To Bookshire, a year ago it had all seemed too easy. Cat had just been one of   
many fallen fighters, seemingly doomed to eternal metallic slavery. He had shared the fate   
of countless others. A year ago, Bookshire had mourned the loss of one of Knothole's   
own, but he hadn't really felt it. He realized that somewhere, deep in his consciousness,   
he had thought of Cat only as a bit player, a character who existed in a story for the sole   
purpose of being roboticized at the end. He had never given it much more thought.  
Cat had been more than that, though. Lupe's next words struck him as being a   
more appropriate title than anything he had ever remembered Cat as while Knothole had   
still been mourning his passing.  
"Freedom Fighter."  



End file.
